Gavin Andresen

From Satoshipedia, the Satoshi Mail encyclopedia

Gavin Andresen is a software developer who discovered Bitcoin in 2010, created the Bitcoin Faucet website that gave bitcoin away, and became lead developer after Satoshi left.^[1] His first forum posts in this archive date from June 2010 (his messages).

Handover

Satoshi gave Andresen control of the source code repository and the network alert key.^[2] On 26 April 2011 he sent him the alert key and broadcast code “in case you need it”, with a request: “I wish you wouldn't keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle.” Andresen published the exchange on his website eleven years later (the email).^[3] His reply quotes Satoshi's email as sent at 4:29 AM US Eastern time (08:29 UTC), and answers about the key: “now I’ve gotta figure out a couple of people who I can trust to keep them safe”.^[4] It is the latest email from Satoshi in this archive.

Later

In 2014 Andresen stepped back as lead maintainer. His commit access was later revoked after he stated that Craig Wright was Satoshi; he later said it had been a mistake to trust Wright.^[1]

In the archive

93 messages in 45 conversations with Satoshi.

• JSON-RPC password 12 messages
• Get 5 free bitcoins from freebitcoins.appspot.com 6 messages
• Flood attack 0.00000001 BC 6 messages
• Scalability 4 messages
• latency and locality 4 messages
• Bitcoin Faucet changes 3 messages
• Anonymity 3 messages
• Donations to freebitcoins.appspot.com needed! 3 messages

See also

• Departure of Satoshi Nakamoto
• Satoshi's accounts and keys
• Bitcoin Core

References

1. Gavin Andresen, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
2. Satoshi Nakamoto, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
3. nakamoto-archive, “Complete archive of Satoshi Nakamoto's writings and productions”, GitHub. The README lists each source file with its origin, date and SHA-256 hash.
4. Eleven years ago today…, Gavin Andresen's blog, 26 April 2022.

Primary sources

The messages and commits this article draws on, in Satoshi Mail and where they were first published.

1. Email to Gavin Andresen, Single emails to Gavin Andresen, Jon Matonis and Laszlo Hanyecz, 26 April 2011. Original source

Published by Tyler Howell for Satoshi Mail. Written with AI assistance from the sources listed above and checked against them. Last updated 22 October 2026. Spotted an error? Email itstylerhowell@gmail.com (how articles are made).

Categories: People · Developers · Correspondents