Martti Malmi, an early contributor to the Bitcoin project, recently shared a fascinating piece of internet history: an archive of private emails between himself and Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's mysterious founder.
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in the technology world. Despite extensive investigations, speculative reports, and numerous claims over the years, the true identity of Bitcoin's creator(s) is still unknown.
Martti Malmi released these private conversations in reaction to a court case focused on the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and the legal entitlements to the Bitcoin brand and technology.
The emails provide some interesting details into Bitcoin's early days, and might also provide some new clues about Satoshi's identity.
Satoshi and Martti worked together on a variety of different things, including the relaunch of the Bitcoin website. Their goal was to broaden public understanding and awareness of Bitcoin.
And to my surprise, the emails reveal they chose Drupal as their preferred CMS! (Thanks to Jeremy Andrews for making me aware.)
The emails detail Satoshi's hands-on involvement, from installing Drupal themes, to configuring Drupal's .htaccess file, to exploring Drupal's multilingual capabilities.
At some point in the conversation, Satoshi expressed reservations about Drupal's forum module.
For what it is worth, this proves that I'm not Satoshi Nakamoto. Had I been, I'd have picked Drupal right away, and I would never have questioned Drupal's forum module.
Jokes aside, as Drupal's Founder and Project Lead, learning about Satoshi's use of Drupal is a nice addition to Drupal's rich history. Almost every day, I'm inspired by the unexpected impact Drupal has.