Satoshi Nakamoto's Last Message To Bitcoin Community Before Disappearing: 'More Work To Do'

Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from the crypto space 10 years ago and in his last message, he talked about the importance of protecting the network from denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

In a message, posted on the Bitcointalk forum on Dec. 12, 2010, Nakamoto said, "There's more work to do on DoS, but I'm doing a quick build of what I have so far in case it's needed, before venturing into more complex ideas."

Nakamoto added that the improvement he did for what was at that time Bitcoin version 0.3.19 was just temporary because the software was not at all resistant to a DoS attack. "This is one improvement, but there are still more ways to attack than I can count," he added.

The creator did not post an update after that one. The next day, on Dec. 13, 2010, he logged off for good.

There was no explanation as to why Nakamoto suddenly left the community. According to Bitcoin.com, the creator was very active in December 2010. The day prior to his last post, he expressed disappointment over a story on PC World that suggested Wikileaks could adopt Bitcoin after it was denied access to PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, technically the three giants of the payments world.

Nakamoto was apparently annoyed by the idea because Bitcoin, at the time, was still a small network run by a small number of people. "It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context," Nakamoto emphasized, adding that Wikileaks could drive attention and, therefore, bring in criticism for Bitcoin.

The creator said Bitcoin needs to slow gradually so that the software can be strengthened along the way. "I make this appeal to Wikileaks not to try to use Bitcoin," Nakamoto said, adding that Bitcoin was a small beta community and hence, "bringing the heat" could likely destroy it.

While December 2010 was the last public post of Satoshi Nakamoto, there was an email correspondence between the Bitcoin creator and developer Gavin Andresen on April 26, 2011. "I wish you wouldn't keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle," Nakamoto said in the email. "Maybe instead make it about the open-source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them."

Andresen replied to the email from Nakamoto, but the Bitcoin creator never responded.