Hal Finney’s Wife Resumes Bitcoin Pioneer Twitter Account To Avoid Possible Purge

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Fran Finney, wife of computer scientist Hal Finney, recipient of Satoshi Nakamoto’s first Bitcoin blockchain transaction, has reactivated her late husband’s Twitter account over fears Twitter CEO Elon Musk is purging the content from the social media platform due to inactivity.

Many Crypto Twitter users reported on Dec. 16 that Finneys account saw activity for the first time in over 12 years. Some speculated that a hacker may have taken over the Bitcoin (BTC) pioneers account and its 71,000+ followers, but Fran quickly stepped in to dispel the rumors.

I tweet for Hal […] to prevent his account from being purged by Elon, Fran said.

I want Hal’s account to remain active and will occasionally post from his account. When I post I will continue to tag myself as a poster.

Fran Finney (@franfinney) December 16, 2022

It’s unclear whether Fran Finneys’ intervention can save the crypto pioneers’ social media presence. Amid Musks’ $44 billion purchase of Twitter, which was completed in October, he said he supports free speech as the foundation of a functioning democracy.

However, under Musks’ direction, the social media platform on Dec. 15 purged a number of accounts controlled by high-profile journalists at institutions including CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Accounts tracking the movements of Musk’s private flights as well as promotion of social networking platform Mastodon which attracted many Twitter users following the billionaires’ takeover were also suspended. The CEO of Twitter claimed that the old doxx reported my exact location in real time.

Why have journalists had their Twitter accounts suspended? Please explain. And it better be a GOOD explanation.

Stephen King (@StephenKing) December 16, 2022

Musk had a net worth of over $300 billion in October 2021 before the Twitter acquisition, and around the same time Tesla’s stock price hit an all-time high of $407.36 in November 2021. In about a year, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed the Tesla CEO had fallen to the second richest person on the planet, with a reported net worth of $169 billion at press time.

As CEO, Musk oversaw a number of controversial decisions on Twitter that caused many in the business world to question his insight. It fired numerous senior executives, including many of the platforms’ content moderation team, and attempted to charge users for verified blue ticks leading to numerous fake accounts with a veneer of legitimacy. The social media platform has also seen a rise in tweets containing hate speech and misinformation about vaccines, putting advertisers’ revenue at risk.

Twitter users seemed largely supportive of Fran Finney’s efforts to show that the account was still active and beneficial to the crypto community. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also took to the platform to express his surprise at the reactivation of the accounts.

There should be a way to protect historically significant accounts, Twitter user 0xAphelion said on the Hal Finneys account. But better be safe.

Related: Crypto spam bots shut down as Musk promises to prosecute scammers

Hal Finney was one of the best-known names in the crypto space, having been one of the first people to respond to Satoshis’ post on the cypherpunks mailing list. He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ALS, also known as Lou Gehrigs disease in 2014 at the age of 58.

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