In today’s world, the chances of someone not hearing about Bitcoin are slim. They might not know what it is or how it works, but the name more than likely rings a bell. What the general public doesn’t know is how you actually earn Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. That’s where Bitcoin mining comes in. In layman’s terms, imagine Bitcoin as a digital treasure chest and mining as how you get that treasure. Naturally, it’s all done by machines, and there's no manual labor involved (duh). But did you know that Bitcoin mining had its own evolution as well, stemming from the earliest days of the cryptocurrency? People first used CPUs to mine back in 2009. It wasn’t particularly effective, but it was better than nothing. Then GPU mining came in and took over, continuing with digital drilling to this day, although it’s not as prominent as it was in its heyday. This is mainly due to ASIC mining, which made it hard for more casual users to continue with their work. Everyone who used their home computers to mine quickly realized that mining became a serious competition where you need to spend a lot of money on specialized mining machines. The consequences of this divided the community that once thrived on collaboration and shared ideals, with large mining farms and institutional investors dominating the space.
Needless to say, where there is mining, there has to be a miner, which brings us to one of the most well known and influential Bitcoin miners in history: Artforz. So, who is Artforz? He was one of the first miners to ever use GPU in order to mine Bitcoin, and he accumulated 409,650 Bitcoins when the Bitcoin price was still under $1, before he disappeared in 2012. He was active in the Bitcoin community, hugely influential for the use of GPUs in mining, and he owned 10% of the total Bitcoin Supply at that time.
As we at PlasBit love a good story about mysterious characters related to Bitcoin and crypto, we bring you this interesting tale about one of the pioneers in Bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin’s Early Days
It’s hard to fathom that Bitcoin is over 15 years old now, and it somehow still feels like it’s a brand new invention. Introduced in 2008 through a seminal whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” it had far less hype than it does now. At the time, it was seen as a groundbreaking experiment in decentralized finance, something that could operate independently of traditional financial institutions and government control. And boy did it deliver in the years to come.
That said, to earn Bitcoin, one needs to mine for it (and no, we’re not talking about using a pickaxe). Basically, Bitcoin mining is the process by which new Bitcoins are created and transactions are verified on the blockchain, which is sort of a secure, transparent digital ledger with a shared record of any transactions. Miners use computational power to solve complex cryptographic puzzles, a process known as proof-of-work (PoW). When a miner successfully solves the puzzle, they add a new block of transactions to the blockchain and receive a block reward, which originally was 50 Bitcoins per block. As of 2024, it’s 3.125 Bitcoins per block.
In the beginning, Bitcoin mining was accessible to anyone with a personal computer. Early enthusiasts used standard CPUs to mine Bitcoins. This was possible due to extremely low network difficulty and the fact that very few people were mining in the first place, and the overall computational power securing the network was minimal. As more people became interested in Bitcoin, the competition increased, and so did the mining difficulty. Crypto enthusiasts soon discovered that graphics processing units (GPUs) were far better than CPUs at performing the computations required for solving the Bitcoin cryptographic puzzles. Since they were originally designed for rendering video games and graphics, GPUs proved to be well-suited for mining due to their ability to perform many calculations simultaneously. Then, the next major evolution in Bitcoin mining came with the development of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). These are specialized hardware units designed solely for mining cryptocurrencies. The problem with this is that as ASIC technology advanced, the barrier to entry grew higher, and mining became increasingly dominated by large-scale operations and mining farms.
Image credit: (Medium)
In the early days, the Bitcoin community was a tight-knit group composed mainly of libertarians, computer nerds, and gamers. As a pretty diverse group, they shared a common vision of a decentralized and censorship-resistant financial system. As a pretty diverse group, they shared a common vision of a decentralized and censorship-resistant financial system, and Bitcoin represented a way to do just that. Those who were more tech-savvy and curious about the technology in general were drawn to Bitcoin for its innovative use of cryptography, blockchain technology, and the concept of a peer-to-peer network that could operate without a central authority. It wasn’t just about the technology, though, as many in the community wanted a more honest and open financial system. This is particularly true when we factor in their roots and early Bitcoin discussions that revolved around privacy, security, and accessibility.
While initially a niche project with not much value, Bitcoin was initially mostly known to a small circle of tech enthusiasts and cryptography experts. Until one day, surprisingly or not, it reached heights where the mainstream public simply had to discover it in one way or another. This newfound fame attracted a wave of investors, both experts and the general public. Predictably, the two sides were primarily motivated by profit rather than underlying technology and what it represents. As such, slowly but surely, people only saw Bitcoin as a way to make money, although the belief of keeping things decentralized and using strong security is still present among some.
A miner and a coder
Mostly known as a notable miner, Artforz was, in fact, much more than that. We don’t know the exact identity, though it was presumed Artforz was a dude. But if you ask us at PlasBit who is Artforz, we’ll say that above all, he was a coder and a brilliant one at that. He was a computer whiz and an electrical engineer by trade who started mining in 2010. At that time, Bitcoin’s price was just $0.01. He officially became known as “Artforz” when he used that pseudonym for the first time in July 2010 on Bitcointalk.org. He was an active member of the forum and even got in a disagreement once with none other than Satoshi Nakamoto, the famous creator of Bitcoin. The disagreement revolved around the use of GPUs in mining. Satoshi was against that, proposing a gentleman’s agreement to postpone the GPU arms race as long as they could for the good of the network. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agreed with him, and Artforz was one of those who disagreed with Nakamoto’s views. So, in July 2010, he started using GPUs to mine a lot of Bitcoin. In one month, he controlled 10% of the network. As more and more miners joined in on the craze, Artforz decided to create an entire farm of GPU miners called ArtFarm. In late July, he said that he had mined 1,700 bitcoins in the last six days, representing a 4% share of the market. One of the users on the forum calculated that the required hashrate to do that is 80,000 KH/s, which is equivalent to the power of eight quad-core server CPUs. In any case, ArtFarm proved fruitful as by December of the same year, Artforz controlled 25% of the Bitcoin network hashrate. He mined a lot of Bitcoins during his time with ArtFarm, which consisted of 24 Radeon 5970s (back in the day, you probably could play Crysis on ultra settings with that many). With adjustments, this translates to the possibility of each unit theoretically reaching 800 MH/s, resulting in a farm with a maximum of 19,200 MH/s.
A rather intriguing detail about Artforz is that he is, allegedly, the first GPU miner to use his own code. At the very least, he is the second person to do so. Nathaniel Popper in his book Digital Gold says that Laszlo Hanyecz (more on him later) mined two months before Artforz started. However, who started first is still up for debate since it’s unclear if Artforz mined even before it was public knowledge. Interestingly enough, there’s a story from 2010 of him taking advantage of a flaw in the timestamp server of the Bitcoin network, changing the dates to a future day, which made the server 'think' he got blocks before anyone else did. This allowed him to mine much faster than other miners. Presumably, he mined over 1000 blocks during a time when the reward per block was 50 BTC, which in today’s value would be approximately a whopping $4.4 billion. Notably, there are some discrepancies between the story and what actually happened, but he did mine a huge amount of BTC while he was active.
At one point, using his extensive mining knowledge and skills, Artforz amassed an insane number of BTC - 409,650, to be exact. Although he did sell most of what he owed, he apparently left 50,000 BTC for himself. In October 2010, Theymos, the creator of Bitcointalk.org, said that Artforz is running with no fees and that he is holding 20-30% of the network hashrate.
Image credit: (Bitcointalk.org)
Theymos also said that ArtForz was the first to implement GPU mining by writing his own code, a fact that appears very plausible given his forum activity. But, during those years Artforz wasn’t just mining. He was an active member of the crypto community, reporting bugs and flaws found in the Bitcoin network. For instance, he reported a very complicated bug to Satoshi. The bug allowed people to spend Bitcoins in a wallet they didn’t own, which could have spelled doom for the entire network and cryptocurrency before Satoshi eventually fixed it.
Artforz’s fall
As technology advanced, so did the Bitcoin miners. There were more and more people joining in on the craze, and slowly but surely, Artforz’s dominance began to decrease. Miners started using FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) and ASICs for BTC mining. ASIC technology became more or less public knowledge around mid 2012, asserting itself as the go-to option for hopeful miners. Even Artforz started using it. Moreover, he designed a few chips himself, which put him back on track with 5% of the total hashrate. Still, the rest started to catch up, and ultimately, he held less than 1% of the total hashrate. To get back in the game, being the expert coder that he is, Artforz began developing a mining algorithm designed to reduce the big advantage held by ASICs. He figured out how to use Scrypt (a protocol used to encrypt file backups). Artforz modified Scrypt and created Tenebrix, a system that allowed him to slow down ASICs and give himself a boost.
Image credit: (Bitcointalk.org)
People started using it en masse, including Charlie Lee (Litecoin’s creator), but shortly after a backslash happened over Tenebrix and Artforz. Someone found out how to use Tenebrix’s Scrypt to mine using GPUs, something that wasn’t mentioned as possible due to it being GPU-resistant. This oversight allowed miners to mine over a hundred times faster than it was claimed. Accusations started coming Artforz’s way saying that he did this deliberately and that he made the Scrypt easy to break and exploit. ArtForz responded to the claims, acknowledging that GPU mining of Scrypt had always been an option. This turn of events reportedly made him stop posting on the Bitcointalk forum altogether because he was never seen afterwards. He popped up here and there on the internet in the years to follow, particularly video game mod forums. Mainly, he made contributions to Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program before completely disappearing from the online world sometime in 2015. His current whereabouts and identity are unknown, leaving the question of who is Artforz much more mysterious.
Artforz Bitcoin
While Artforz was an interesting character in the early cryptocurrency days, these days, his name likely isn’t all that well known to the masses. So, what would be the best way to answer when someone inquires about Artforz Bitcoin? He was an early miner of Bitcoin and once held 10% of all available Bitcoin. He was the second person to mine Bitcoin using a GPU, which meant that he was able to mine much faster than those using CPUs. He also contributed to the Bitcoin community by identifying bugs in the Bitcoin source code. One of the more notable instances was when Artforz provided Satoshi and a fellow developer Gavin Andersen with information regarding a vulnerability that would have allowed an unauthorized expenditure of any user's Bitcoins.
Artforz Bitcointalk
Like many other crypto enthusiasts, he was an active member of the community during that time, and many other members would immediately recognize who and what you’re talking about if you said Artforz Bitcointalk. Artforz was the pseudonym of a prominent user of the Bitcoin forum Bitcointalk and a senior member of it between the years 2010-2012, in which he participated in discussions about Bitcoin framework development, mining, and security concerns. He was also involved in discussions with Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, regarding the use of GPUs in Bitcoin mining and the implications on its community and availability. This is particularly noteworthy due to Satoshi’s proposition of a gentleman’s agreement not to use GPUs, and Artforz being one of the first (if not the first) to understand how to harness GPU power for mining, in addition to writing the code and implementing a small mining setup.
Artforz mining
As we mentioned above, he was an expert miner who gathered a huge amount of BTC during the time when the cryptocurrency was barely worth anything. But how good was Artforz mining? Artforz was a key figure in Bitcoin mining history, as he was the second ever person to mine Bitcoin using GPUs, and was a key figure in the discussion about its effects on Bitcoin and on the community. He apparently was the first ever person to create a mining farm using GPUs, which led him to control a large portion of the Bitcoin network's computing power. At one point, he even intended to invest $200,000 in specialized mining hardware, expecting to reach a hashrate of 200 GH/s if all went according to plan. Unfortunately for him (and every other Bitcoin fan), Bitcoin's hash rate climbed sharply in mid 2011, surpassing 7 TH/s. By August, Artforz's presence in the network's hash rate had dwindled to less than 1%.
Other miners
Though we don’t know who is Artforz, he wasn’t the only notable mining persona at that time. Other, publicly known miners such as Luke Dashjr left their indelible marks. He was a prominent Bitcoin developer and miner known for deep technical expertise and contributions to Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin protocol. His work includes developing patches and participating in important debates around scaling, block size, and other protocol parameters. In 2011, Dashjr started the Eligius mining pool but is perhaps best recognized for his outspoken views on maintaining Bitcoin’s decentralization and resisting proposals that could lead to centralization or compromise security. Presently, he’s the CTO of OCEAN, a unique mining pool on a mission to radically decentralize Bitcoin mining.
Then, we have Marek Palatinus, also known as Slush. Operating under his pseudonym, this early Bitcoin pioneer is best known for creating SlushPool in 2010, the first Bitcoin mining pool. Before the appearance of mining pools, people mined Bitcoin by themselves, but it ultimately became too difficult. Slush helped in a big way, as his innovation allowed miners to combine their computing power to improve their chances of mining a block. You could say that SlushPool set a new standard for mining operations across the globe, since mining pools now play a key role in ensuring consistent block production and network. Slush continues to contribute to the widespread acceptance of Bitcoin. He’s the founder and CEO of SatoshiLabs, the company behind Trezor - one of the most popular cryptocurrency hardware wallets around.
Finally, there’s Laszlo Hanyecz who is best known for making the first documented real-world Bitcoin transaction. On May 22nd, 2010, he famously paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas (worth $41 back then), demonstrating Bitcoin’s potential as a medium of exchange. This event is celebrated annually as Bitcoin Pizza Day and is widely regarded as a turning point that showcased Bitcoin's practical use in everyday transactions. Beyond that, Hanyecz was active in the early mining community, helping to validate and secure the network at its beginnings. He mined for a good year before the pizza transaction and it’s speculated he continued to do so. To this day, he has yet to reveal if he still possesses any Bitcoin.
Image credit: (Bitcoinwiki.org)
Artforz’s legacy
The story of Artforz is yet another captivating tale in the broad pool of crypto individuals who had a tangible influence on cryptocurrencies in one way or another. As with most of these articles, we at PlasBit always wonder about these enigmatic characteשrs and what they are doing in the current day and age, specifically because their identity is unknown most of the time. Today, not many know who is Artforz. We don’t mean that identity-wise, but just how influential he was for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies in the dawn of the crypto era. What we do know is that he didn’t sell all of his Bitcoins, at least not before he went off the radar. This means that if Artforz held Bitcoins until this very day, his wealth would be approximated to $5 billion - placing him among one of the richest people in the world.
