Once upon a time a man paid me a visit in cyberspace, at this very domain. He planted a seed in our heads that would become the path we are walking today.

May 2011 was also the last time Satoshi communicated privately with other Bitcoin contributors. In an email that month to Martti Malmi, one of the earliest participants, Satoshi wrote, "I've moved on to other things and probably won't be around in the future."

No, it is meant to be private without logging allowed.

The #bitcoin channel on Freenode is "officially unlogged." That means we officially don't publish the logs anywhere, and if we find that logs are published somewhere, we ask that they be taken down

As for his lost password and inaccessible Bitcoin, Mr. Thomas has put the IronKey in a secure facility - he won’t say where - in case cryptographers come up with new ways of cracking complex passwords. Keeping it far away helps him try not to think about it, he said.

“I would just lay in bed and think about it," Mr. Thomas said.