Bitcoin Institute
Bitcoin Institute
日本語

Martti Malmi (1988–)

Bitcoin's first developer after Satoshi

Figures Event Added Updated
bitcoin-orgbitcointalklinuxhistoricearly-contributorcopa-trial

Dark navy infographic-style hero image showing a chain of envelope icons above a large number, three icon panels (a stylized penguin shape, a browser window, and a forum speech bubble), and a bitcoin coin icon linked by an arrow to a dollar-sign icon.

In May 2009, a 20-year-old Helsinki computer-science student wrote to Satoshi Nakamoto offering to help. Over the next two years they exchanged roughly 260 emails — the largest known volume of correspondence between Satoshi and any single individual.

Malmi kept the archive private for thirteen years.

In February 2024 he submitted it as evidence in the COPA v Wright trial.

Martti Malmi (born 1988, Helsinki, Finland) studied computer science at Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University). His contributions to Bitcoin’s first two years included starting the Linux port, the bitcoin.org website, the original Bitcoin forum (which became BitcoinTalk), and the first known bitcoin-for-fiat sale.

1988Born in Helsinki2009First contact withSatoshi; offers to help(May)Linux port started +bitcoin.org + the originalBitcoin forum (laterBitcoinTalk)5,050 BTC sold for$5.02 - first knownBTC-fiat exchange (Oct12)Satoshi credits Malmi inBitcoin 0.2 releaseannouncement (Dec)2010Second root-passwordholder for bitcoin.org -"It should be Gavin"(Dec 3)2011Last known email fromSatoshi to Malmi (Feb22)BitcoinTalk.orgmigration (Aug 1)2024Testifies and submitsemail evidence inCOPA v Wright (Feb 21)

First Contact with Satoshi

In May 2009, Malmi discovered Bitcoin and contacted Satoshi Nakamoto, offering to help with the project. Their correspondence would grow to approximately 260 emails — the largest known volume of communication between Satoshi and any single individual. These emails were entered into evidence during the COPA v Wright trial in February 2024.

Contributions to Bitcoin

Malmi raised the idea of a Linux port in August 2009 and started it in a branch at the end of October, the first move off Windows after the twenty-seven months in which Linux never appears in Satoshi’s record (documented in the analysis of Satoshi’s development environment). Satoshi took the build over in the first week of November and merged it into the trunk; the v0.2 release notes put the Linux version under Malmi’s name. He set up and managed the bitcoin.org website, the project’s primary information hub — becoming its WHOIS registrant on May 18, 2011, when the domain moved off the AnonymousSpeech.com registration Satoshi had used since founding it. He also created the original Bitcoin forum (which later became BitcoinTalk), the community’s first dedicated discussion platform. Satoshi acknowledged the contributions in the Bitcoin 0.2 release announcement (December 2009):

Many thanks to Martti (sirius-m) for all his development work.

Satoshi also asked Malmi about names. On February 12, 2010, he committed the first draft of the command-line and JSON-RPC interface, with the switches -daemon and -server. Ten days later he wrote to Malmi: “Any suggestions what to name the command line switches and how to describe them? Is there any traditional standard?” Malmi answered: “That seems good, I don’t know of any standards about it.” Both names are still defined in Bitcoin Core’s src/init.cpp, with -server described as “Accept command line and JSON-RPC commands.”

First Bitcoin-to-Fiat Transaction

On October 12, 2009, Malmi sold 5,050 BTC to NewLibertyStandard for $5.02 via PayPal. This is the first known exchange of bitcoin for fiat currency, establishing that bitcoin had real-world monetary value. Malmi later confirmed this transaction on Twitter, stating he made the sale “to help him get the world’s first bitcoin trading service started.” He had proposed an exchange of his own to Satoshi that July, and built it afterwards: bitcoinexchange.com, whose beta reported its first sale in May 2010. Its place among the other exchanges that opened in those months is set out in the analysis of the exchanges before Mt. Gox.

”It should be Gavin”

On December 3, 2010, after an outage of bitcoin.org, Malmi proposed adding server admins: he could give the root password to Satoshi and somebody else, perhaps someone recruited on the forum. Satoshi, who by then was stepping back from active development, named that somebody:

Satoshi Nakamoto (email to Martti Malmi, December 03, 2010, 7:58:40 PM UTC)

It should be Gavin. I trust him, he’s responsible, professional, and technically much more linux capable than me.

Malmi replied “Ok, I’ll ask him,” and sent the encrypted root password to Satoshi on December 7. The choice concerned the project’s web server, not its code: Andresen had been committing to the SVN repository under his own name since October, and he announced on December 19, 2010 that he would take on more active project management, the last step in how the project passed to him. The same email appears in Gavin Andresen’s own biography, told from Andresen’s side of the handover.

Later Years

Malmi continued occasional correspondence with Satoshi into early 2011. The final known email Satoshi sent to Malmi was on February 22, 2011 — two months before Satoshi’s last private exchanges with Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen. Malmi gradually reduced his involvement in Bitcoin development around 2011 as other developers took on larger roles. He went on to work in the technology industry in Finland.

Related Entries

330 entries / 11 threads

Event Added Updated Analysis

What they said about Satoshi — from first doubts to a Nobel nomination

Satoshi Nakamoto ↔ Hal Finney, Adam Back, Ray Dillinger, James A. Donald, John Levine, Wei Dai, Mike Hearn, Martti Malmi, Jeff Garzik, Laszlo Hanyecz, Benjamin Wallace, Dan Kaminsky, Sergio Demian Lerner, Jameson Lopp, Nick Szabo, James Mellor

Doubters called it unscalable in 2008. A famed hacker failed to break the code. A judge, a dictionary, and a Nobel nominator weighed in. What others said about Satoshi, read as one record.