Background
Finney was born in Coalinga, California in 1956.
Finney was born in Coalinga, California in 1956.
California Institute of Technology.
In his early career, he was credited as lead developer on several console games. He also was an early bitcoin user and received the first bitcoin transaction from bitcoin"s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. He went on to attend the California Institute of Technology, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1981.
After graduation from Caltech, he went to work in the computer gaming field for a company that developed video games such as Adventures of Tron, Armor Ambush, Astroblast and Space Attack.
He later went to work for the PGP Corporation with whom he remained until his retirement in 2011. Finney was a noted cryptographic activist.
During the early 1990s, in addition to being a regular poster on the cypherpunks listserv, Finney ran two anonymous remailers. Further cryptographic activism included running a (successful) contest to break the export-grade encryption Netscape used.
In 2004, Finney created the first reusable proof of work system before bitcoin.
In January 2009, Finney was the bitcoin network"s first transaction recipient. He continued to program until his death. He was working on experimental software called bcflick, which uses Trusted Computing to strengthen bitcoin wallets.
In October 2009, Finney announced in an essay on the blog Less Wrong that he had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ) in August 2009.
Prior to his illness, Finney had been an active runner. In March 2013, Finney posted on a bitcoin forum that he was essentially paralyzed, but continued to program
During the last year of his life, the Finneys received anonymous calls demanding an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin. They became victims of swatting - a hoax "where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim’s home".
Hal Finney died in Phoenix August 28, 2014 and was cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.