gavin-andresen

Gavin Andresen recalls working with Satoshi

Gavin Andresen, who was given commit access to Bitcoin by Satoshi and became the lead developer, recalls his interactions with Satoshi and the transition of leadership.

Bitcoin v0.5 removes the Crypto++ dependency, replacing it with OpenSSL SHA-256

On November 20, 2011, Bitcoin v0.5 shipped with the Crypto++ SHA-256 subset removed and replaced by OpenSSL. Wei Dai's library, a direct codebase dependency since v0.1, was gone.

Gavin will visit the CIA

Gavin Andresen announces he has been invited to give a presentation about Bitcoin at the CIA, which may have contributed to Satoshi's subsequent withdrawal from the project.

Satoshi's final known emails — farewell to Hearn, alert key to Andresen

Satoshi's final known private messages: April 23, 2011 to Mike Hearn — "in good hands with Gavin." April 26 to Andresen, transferring the alert key and saying he would probably be unavailable.

Forbes 'Crypto Currency' — early mainstream feature on Bitcoin and Satoshi (2011)

One of the first major print magazine features on Bitcoin. Greenberg interviews Andresen, who calls Bitcoin "better gold than gold." The mainstream attention may have driven Satoshi's withdrawal.

Development process straw-man

Gavin Andresen publicly announces taking on active project management for Bitcoin with Satoshi's blessing, creating the bitcoin/bitcoin GitHub staging tree and proposing a development process.

Andresen announces taking over Bitcoin project management (December 19, 2010)

Gavin Andresen announces on BitcoinTalk topic 2367 he is taking over active project management of Bitcoin with Satoshi's blessing. Same day, he creates the bitcoin/bitcoin GitHub repo.

Satoshi tells Andresen he is working on other projects (September 2010)

In September 2010, Satoshi privately tells Andresen he is working on other projects — the earliest documented signal of his intent to step back. He soon handed Andresen the repository and alert key.