S17 E31: Alex Waltz Reveals Bitcoin's First Miner

Alex Waltz is a prominent Bitcoin historian and film maker, who specializes in digging up information from the first months of Bitcoin's existence. Recently, he launched the ”First Bitcoin Miner” project in order to question whether or not Hal Finney truly was the second mining node on the Bitcoin network. In this episode, we talk about his work and some geeky facts about Bitcoin's history. Read Bitcoin: Year One (free download): https://bitcoin-takeover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Bitcoin-Year-One-Vlad-Costea-Ani-Comic-Book-Demo.pdf Read Alex's research: https://1stbitcoinminer.com Sponsors: Proudly sponsored by Orangerock.com: Trade Without Limits Orangerock is the pro trading terminal that fits in your pocket. Perps and spot, instant cross-chain swaps, and a self-custodial wallet. Trade crypto, stocks, and commodities with up to 40x leverage. Your keys, no surveillance. Get app: https://go.orangerock.com/bitcoin-takeover Sideshift, the place where you can exchange your stablecoins for unconfiscatable, free market money: https://sideshift.ai LayerTwo Labs, creators of BIP300 and builders of the Drivechain. Now they're hard forking Bitcoin to create Ecash too: https://ecash.com Cake Wallet, your privacy-friendly self-custody companion. Enables silent payments, PayJoins & Lightning for Bitcoin. Also supports Monero, Zcash, Zano & more. Available on desktop & mobile: https://cakewallet.com Time stamps: 00:00:41 Introducing Alex Waltz & His Projects 00:03:34 The Philosophy of Art and Filmmaking 00:05:18 Alex's Research for "First Bitcoin Miner" 00:09:28 The First Bitcoin Miners: Hal Finney vs. Dustin Trammell 00:14:37 Early Bitcoin History and Cypherpunk Involvement 00:21:28 Debating Sergio Lerner's "Patoshi" Research 00:25:39 The Technicals of the Patoshi Pattern 00:37:30 Zcash Giveaway Announcement 00:40:10 The Research Process and Dedication 00:43:11 Analyzing Early Bitcoin Block Times 00:50:35 Explaining the Extra Nonce and Network Halts 01:10:18 Satoshi Was in California? 01:25:49 Why This Research Matters 01:36:18 Feedback and Cinematography 01:49:25 The "Satoshi's Don't Exist" Movie Saga 02:00:41 The Bitcoin Community: Then and Now 02:18:43 The "Knots" Fork Controversy & Moral Panic 02:30:39 The Future of Bitcoin Development 02:34:38 Bitcoin's Use Case: Payments vs. Store of Value 02:46:33 What Is The Point of Bitcoin? 02:56:38 Alex's First Bitcoin Purchase 03:00:38 Early Bitcoin Wallets 03:16:20 Mircea Popescu: A Bitcoin Legend 03:48:07 Growing Up in 90s Romania 04:00:48 Final Message: Take Risks and Build