Exactly 14 years ago, on January 11th, 2009, Hal Finney, one of the founding fathers of the Bitcoin ecosystem, launched a cryptocurrency node on his computer.
He announced this on his Twitter page, and the phrase "Running bitcoin" has become legendary since then.
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At the moment of writing, the tweet has accumulated more than 64,000 likes and 21,000 retweets. Numbers like these correspond with the levels of respect that this figure has within the crypto realms.
Hal Finney was a developer from the US, who can be considered on a par with Satoshi Nakamoto as the founder of Bitcoin. He was the first to receive a 10 BTC transaction, as well as to launch a network node on his own computer. Unfortunately, he was also diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 2009. Finney passed away from complications caused by the disease in 2014.
In late 2021, Finney's widow announced a charity annual event in his honor “RUNNING BITCOIN CHALLENGE”. All donations from patrons will go towards finding a cure for ALS.
Here's how a Twitter user commented under that very tweet:
His contribution to the cryptocurrency community will never be forgotten. Rest in peace Hal, you will always be remembered as a trailblazer
Thanks to people like him the crypto revolution was made possible. The world has changed, and today such news as new Bitcoin ATMs being installed on the regular are no longer something unbelievable.
