The late cypherpunk and cryptographer had just become the first person to receive the digital currency from its creator Satoshi Nakamoto himself. But more importantly, he had become the first person to trust bitcoin for its immense potential. He would run its code, review its anonymity and environmental drawbacks, suggest changes, and would entirely immerse himself to support an open-source project that would one day grow up to challenge the status-quo of mainstream finance.
Source: 10 Year Anniversary of Hal Finney’s Running Bitcoin Tweet: Rapid Growth