In Nod to Crypto Community, Twitter Won’t Purge Hal Finney’s Account

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Gerelyn Terzo
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Crypto Twitter members breathed a collective sigh of relief today after some reassurance from the man himself. Square Crypto, whose Twitter account is seemingly manned by bitcoin bull Jack Dorsey, revealed that the Twitter account of the late Hal Finney isn’t going anywhere.

It started with a tweet by bitcoin rewards app Lolli, which asked Dorsey and Twitter what would happen to the @halfin handle in light of the social media platform’s pursuit to shutter inactive accounts. Hal Finney was a software engineer and cryptographer who is famous for receiving the first ever Bitcoin transaction sent by Satoshi Nakamoto. Finney’s succumbed to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 2014. Dorsey’s other company, Square Crypto, which is the cryptocurrency arm of payments platform Square, responded.

Crypto Twitter found another reason to admire Dorsey and couldn’t be happier, given that Finney is a symbol of Bitcoin’s best.

$BTC pic.twitter.com/Z20SS6ttLF

— The Laughing Man (@laughingmantwit) November 27, 2019

Even though he’s been gone for more than half a decade, Finney’s Twitter account boasts more than 14,000 followers, some of whom are convinced that @halfin is the real Satoshi Nakamoto. What we do know is Finney was running Bitcoin. And there is evidence of Finney’s email communication with the Bitcoin creator, at which time neither one of them – for all of their prescience – could have known for sure what was in store.

What Hal Finney and Jack Dorsey Have in Common

For those who don’t know, Hal Finney was an early Bitcoin contributor. He was working on Bitcoin before Bitcoin was cool. Now that Square Crypto is similarly contributing to Bitcoin, perhaps that is why Jack Dorsey seemingly has a soft spot for his late peer.

After all, Square Crypto’s journey would not be possible were it not for the groundwork laid by Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto and crypto pioneers like Hal Finney. Square Crypto’s homage to the ones who started it all is evident in the fact that they are not interested in branding any Bitcoin product after themselves. There is no JACK coin or Twitter token. Instead, the Square Crypto team is quietly making open-source contributions to the Bitcoin Core software behind the scenes with one objective – to bolster the leading cryptocurrency into the mainstream.

Square Crypto PM Steve Lee previously revealed the mission of the company’s dev team:

We are focused on open-source Bitcoin development. We do hope our work improves as many products and businesses as possible, including Square and its competitors.

With all of the focus on the BTC price these days, Finney’s legacy is a reminder of what bitcoin at its core was designed to be – financial freedom. As per the Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto:

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

And this Thanksgiving holiday that is something for the entire crypto community to be thankful for. Of course, crypto is thankful for Jack too.