Fran Finney, the widowed wife of Hal Finney, has spoken about her late husband for the first time since his passing.
“Hal is gone. Just “for now” I hope. But he is gone, at the very least “for now”. I feel his absence acutely. All day. Much of the night. Little things, big things,” she posted on a blog she hadn’t updated in nearly a year.
She describes the process of caring for Hal, which she called “all-encompassing”, as well as the process of his deteriorating physical condition.
Hal was determined to go on living, despite his illness and reliance on medical science to keep him alive. It was only if he ran the risk of suffering from Locked-In Syndrome, a condition where the patient remains mentally cognitive, but entirely loses the ability to interact with the outside world, that he would consider ending it.
Hal started to notice he was losing control of his eye movements almost a year ago. Using his eyes to maneuver his computer became more and more difficult. He had to give up coding… Then he had to give up posting or emailing. Then using the internet at all. Then reading ebooks. Then using his speech program. Then watching television. Finally he was only able to communicate by raising or lowering his eyes.
At that point, Hal decided to be cryogenically frozen until such time as a cure for ALS was discovered.
Hal’s History
Hal Finney is famous within Bitcoin circles for being one of the very first adopters of what we now know as cryptocurrency.
Having written about cryptography back in the 90′s, he invented the first proof-of-work system, one of the technologies upon which Bitcoin is built. He also had the honour of receiving the very first Bitcoin transaction.
While Satoshi-hunters have often pointed the finger at him, Finney denied it.
If he was Satoshi, we’ll never know now.
Fran Finney Speaks About Her Late Husband
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