SATOSHI'S LAST STAND

On December 12th, 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto created a Bitcointalk forum post. It was, by all appearances, a dry topic titled “Added some DoS limits, removed safe mode (0.3.19).” And indeed, that’s exactly how it read as Satoshi ran through several of the key improvements that came bundled with the latest build of Bitcoin.

But what Satoshi knew – and the community didn’t – was this would be the last time he would address them publicly. Satoshi had decided to bow out, and before he left there was some housekeeping to take care of.

The post itself was technically dense, albeit concise, running to just 160 words. While the technical import of the message has been overshadowed by its symbolism as Satoshi’s last utterance it was, for the record, concerned with protecting the Bitcoin network against spam or malicious overload. The update included basic rate-limits and validation rules to mitigate abuse.

Notably, Satoshi introduced a switch to throttle the relay of free (fee-less) transactions, though he left this feature disabled by default, writing in typically calm fashion: “as a switch for now… there if you need it.” A subtle hint, perhaps, that he knew we wouldn’t be around to oversee the next Bitcoin client update.

Searching for Signs

Bitcoin historians, internet psychologists, and amateur sleuths have pored over Satoshi’s every known utterance in search of signs. What did his words reveal about his personality? His origins? His education? His vision for Bitcoin? Predictably, few messages have been examined more closely than his final forum post that became his public sign-off.

If the seekers were hoping for Easter eggs, they were disappointed: Satoshi’s last message contains no acrostics hinting at his future plans or private keys. All that can be reasonably inferred from the 173-word message is that Satoshi gave the air of a man with limited time in which to tie as many loose ends as possible.

There is a sense of urgency in his wording – “doing a quick build of what I have so far in case it’s needed” – that suggests he was keenly aware of potential threats and felt obliged to address them promptly. Unlike earlier posts where he might hypothesize or philosophize, on this occasion Satoshi didn’t stray into any vision or future plans aside from hinting at “more complex ideas” to come. His no-nonsense message gave the air of a fleet commander shouting final orders from the quayside before watching the ship slip its moorings and ease into the bay.

After posting his final announcement at 18:22 UTC on Dec 12th, Satoshi Nakamoto was never heard from on the forum again. His BitcoinTalk profile shows his last active time as Dec 13th, 2010, suggesting he checked the thread the next day before logging out for the last time.