Satoshi’s reply was blunt about how thin the network had become:
Satoshi Nakamoto (email to Nicholas Bohm, July 19, 2009, 3:07:00 AM UTC)There may just not be anybody else running it right now.
He first asked whether Bohm’s IP address had changed. His own node could not accept incoming connections, so if Bohm’s address had changed, the two nodes would have lost each other. He asked how many connections Bohm usually had, and urged him to keep his server running, so that new users who came along would at least have someone to connect to, rather than get no connections and give up.
Roughly six months after launch, a newcomer who started the software found the network only if a node like Bohm’s was online and reachable. Satoshi’s own node, which could only dial out, was in the same position as any newcomer.
Satoshi followed up the next day with the IP address his own node was connected to. This exchange stayed private until COPA v. Wright trial evidence revealed the full correspondence in 2024.
