Never-before-seen Satoshi Nakamoto emails add several details to Bitcoin’s origin lore

Private email correspondence between the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and an early contributor to the project, Martii Malmi, has shed further light on the origin story of the flagship crypto and its creator’s earliest thoughts about the future.

The emails were shared as evidence by Malmi in the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) vs. Craig Wright trial as part of his testimony. The trial has been ongoing since the beginning of February and will determine whether Wright’s claims of creating Bitcoin have any substance.

Never before seen emails

One group of emails concerns early conversations between Nakamoto and Malmi, who contributed to the Bitcoin website and project code starting in 2009.

The emails provide insight into Nakamoto’s earliest expectations regarding Bitcoin and its future growth. Based on the emails, he was aware of the challenges Bitcoin could face regarding its legal status.

In one email, he wrote:

“There are a lot of things you can say on the sourceforge site that I can’t say on my own site … Even so, I’m uncomfortable with explicitly saying ‘consider it an investment’. That’s a dangerous thing to say and you should delete that bullet point. It’s OK if [Bitcoin users] come to that conclusion on their own, but we can’t pitch it as that.”

Whether cryptocurrencies and related offerings are investment contracts has been a critical point of contention between the industry and regulators, especially the US SEC.

After years of negative sentiment, Bitcoin has generally established itself as a commodity, with many considering it “digital gold.” This is primarily because it was initially issued through mining rather than investment contracts, although Bitcoin exchanges allowed users to purchase the crypto asset as early as 2010.

Incidentally, the emails describe the creation of one of the first Bitcoin exchanges. Nakamoto was looking for ideas for Bitcoin applications, and Malmi suggested a fiat-to-Bitcoin exchange.

Malmi went on to operate and register Bitcoinexchange.com, as was previously known. However, the latest emails show that Nakamoto had been a key advisor for the exchange.

Nakamoto advised Malmi to initially operate the exchange individually instead of creating an “eBay-type” or peer-to-peer exchange. He also dropped his plans to incorporate an auction system in favor of Malmi’s idea for a set exchange rate.

Furthermore, Nakamoto secured a donation of $3,600, of which $1,000 was allocated to…