Who is Martii Malmi? Bitcoin’s earliest contributor and Satoshi’s first helper

Early Bitcoin contributor Martii Malmi recently attracted attention for sharing his email correspondence with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

However, Malmi’s contributions go far beyond email correspondence, as he was one of the first developers to ever work on Bitcoin’s code aside from its pseudonymous creator, based on information collected by Peter Rizzo.

He contributed to Bitcoin between 2009 and 2011, working alongside Bitcoin legends like Hal Finney, Gavin Andresen, and Laszo Hanyecz of Bitcoin Pizza Day fame.

Bitcoin’s earliest years

Malmi was a college student at the time of his Bitcoin contributions and was one of the first people to defend it via ideological arguments in favor of a separation of money and state on anti-state.org. He also argued against claims that Bitcoin had no intrinsic value.

Malmi wrote virtually all of the text on Bitcoin.org, the first website related to the flagship crypto, and was the only developer to work on version 0.2 of the Bitcoin Core software apart from Nakamoto.

He was also the first person to complete a recognized Bitcoin-to-USD trade in 2009 when he sold 5000 BTC for $5.

Besides setting up Bitcoin’s website, he created the first Bitcoin exchange with Nakamoto’s support and blessings in 2010 and used 30,000 of his own BTC to act as the sole market maker on the exchange. His efforts led to onboarding hundreds of users to Bitcoin through the exchange.

According to an old tweet from 2020, Malmi also spent 10,000 BTC on an apartment in 2011 when Bitcoin was trading at roughly $30, making his purchase one of the first major real-world uses of Bitcoin.

Records show that Malmi parted with roughly 55,000 BTC over the years, mainly to help the ecosystem flourish. Those BTC would be worth more than $3 billion today.

Malmi has publicly said that he puts most of his savings into Bitcoin, which he added was “not much” in 2020. He currently serves as the CEO of Sirius Business, a company that is focused on decentralized social media.

The Craig Wright case

Malmi is no longer directly involved in Bitcoin’s development. However, recent developments prompted him to discuss his time working with Nakamoto.

Computer scientist Craig Wright has claimed to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in various court cases over the years and is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). The organization aims to refute his claims.

In one 2019 case, Wright alleged in passing that Malmi was the creator of the dark web market Silk Road even though Ross Ulbricht was convicted for that act. Malmi has never been criminally accused of any role in the Silk Road marketplace’s operations and denied the allegation in court.

He joined COPA’s efforts to refute Wright’s claims through legal means, recently testified in the trial, and submitted his emails with Nakamoto as evidence.

His testimony has brought many details to light about the early days of Bitcoin and revealed multiple contradictions in Wright’s claims over the years.

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