One of Bitcoin’s most influential thinkers, Theymos never contributed code to the Bitcoin project directly but worked for years as a central moderator for its major forums.

A keen student of the codebase, his influence was apparent from the project’s earliest days when on the Bitcoin.org forums or IRC Theymos could be counted on to define how the protocol worked, his understanding sometimes even surpassing that of other avid coders. 

What’s clear is that, after discovering Bitcoin in February 2010, Theymos went to work auditing the code, as his posts show an intricate understanding of not just the basic concepts, but even the more obscure commands Satoshi added to the codebase at launch.

However, it’s Theymos’ contributions to project philosophy that perhaps stand out the most. The first to point out directly that changes to the code could result in issues impacting the rights of users, it’s clear Theymos thought deeply about the implications of Bitcoin’s design. 

For instance, he was at the forefront of arguing users could leverage their ability to fork the code if they ever disagreed with project leadership, an argument he’d push to its limits when he’d attempt to overturn a code change enacted by Satoshi.

The fact that, when looking back at this disagreement, many would side with Theymos’ view on the matter is all the more evidence that his early thinking has endured.