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Nicholas Bohm

From Satoshipedia, the Satoshi Mail encyclopedia

Nicholas Bohm is a retired English solicitor who was one of Bitcoin's first users and corresponded with Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. He qualified in 1968, became a partner at the law firm Norton Rose in 1975 and retired from it in 1994. His interest in cryptography dates from the late 1970s.[1]

With Satoshi

Bohm read the Cryptography Mailing List, where the white paper was announced, and downloaded the paper on 18 January 2009.[1] On 25 January he asked bitcoin-list whether it was the place to report problems (his post). Satoshi replied the same day, to him and the list, asking him to send his debug log directly rather than to the list (the reply), and they continued in private (the emails).

Over the following week they chased crashes in Bitcoin v0.1. When email attachments failed to arrive, Satoshi sent test builds from both his addresses and through a file-hosting site, and on 31 January he wrote: “Good news! I pinpointed the bug. The bug could occur if a DNS lookup failed.” (the email).

On 1 February Satoshi told him, “I sent a transfer to your Bitcoin address in case you're curious what that looks like” (the email); Bohm's witness statement describes it as an unprompted transfer of 100 bitcoins.[1] Two days later Bohm sent bitcoins to an address Satoshi gave him, Satoshi promised to send “+0.01” back as a confirmation, and Bohm wrote that “the bc19.01 came back pretty swiftly!” (the email).

Their emails run until July 2009. Satoshi explained what the “blocks” count in the status bar meant (the email), that an occasional generated block marked “not accepted” was normal (the email), and, when Bohm found a generated block worth 50.10, that the extra 0.10 was a transaction fee someone had included (the email).

Evidence in COPA v Wright

In July 2023 Bohm made a witness statement for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance in COPA v Wright, exhibiting his complete correspondence with Satoshi as exported from his email program.[1] That export was later republished on GitHub, which is the copy in Satoshi Mail; Bohm's postal address, telephone numbers and IP address are left out here.[2]

In the archive

40 messages in 14 conversations with Satoshi.

See also

References

  1. Witness statement of Nicholas Bohm, COPA v Wright, claim IL-2021-000019, July 2023.
  2. Emails with Satoshi Nakamoto (exhibit NB1, republished on GitHub). Retrieved 21 October 2026.

Primary sources

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

  1. [bitcoin-list] Problems, bitcoin-list (SourceForge), 25 January 2009. Original source
  2. [bitcoin-list] Problems, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 26 January 2009. Original source
  3. Bugfix, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 31 January 2009. Original source
  4. Another crash, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 1 February 2009. Original source
  5. Bitcoin, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 3 February 2009. Original source
  6. Bitcoin UI question, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 13 February 2009. Original source
  7. Generated (not accepted), Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 6 April 2009. Original source
  8. Bitcoin, Private email with Nicholas Bohm (COPA v Wright exhibit NB1), 24 May 2009. 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 · Correspondents