Hal may not have been the first Satoshi, but he defiantly was the first Bitcoin dev contributor (sourceforge confirms this).
between v0.0 and v0.1 there was also double the code, maybe a lot of that was Hal's contribution.
Hal also troubleshooted bugs with Satoshi via private email at network launch, with the v0.1 client
soon after, he said he'd be moving on to Satoshi by email, and by all evidence he left the space entirely, only to return years latter on the bitcointalk forums/reddit when Satoshi had already left.
But it's possible Hal assumed a "Satoshi" account on the forums or emails to help privately during this time when he apparently wasn't involved anymore. it's possible, but still, not the original Satoshi.
I kinda like this angle of thought.
Hal may not have been the first Satoshi, but he defiantly was the first Bitcoin dev contributor (sourceforge confirms this).
between v0.0 and v0.1 there was also double the code, maybe a lot of that was Hal's contribution.
Hal also troubleshooted bugs with Satoshi via private email at network launch, with the v0.1 client
soon after, he said he'd be moving on to Satoshi by email, and by all evidence he left the space entirely, only to return years latter on the bitcointalk forums/reddit when Satoshi had already left.
But it's possible Hal assumed a "Satoshi" account on the forums or emails to help privately during this time when he apparently wasn't involved anymore. it's possible, but still, not the original Satoshi.