Satoshi Trail Run for Hal

10/15: note, the event has been postponed to April 12th

I'm excited to share with you all an event and fundraiser I'm helping put together with fellow bitcoiners in the Austin, Texas region!

We're putting on the first ever Satoshi Trail Run for Hal on April 12th at Hippo Social Club! Come together with the greater Austin area’s bitcoin community to celebrate the 16th anniversary of Satoshi’s release of the bitcoin white paper (10/31/2008) and experience the best money humans have ever discovered. 

The event will feature a trail run to benefit the ALS Network’s Hal Finney ALS / MND Research Fund in partnership with the Running Bitcoin Challenge. Hal Finney was an important early contributor to bitcoin and was the first individual to receive a bitcoin transaction from Satoshi in early 2009; he sadly passed away from ALS in 2014, but his legacy lives on through the Finney Prize and his wife Fran’s tireless efforts to raise awareness and funding for ALS research.

Hal famously tweeted that he was running bitcoin on January 10th, 2009, one week after the first bitcoin block was mined by Satoshi.

You can listen more on Fran and Hal's story on this recent episode of Citadel Dispatch.

The event will take place at the Hippo Social Club in Hutto starting with the trail run in the morning, and is presented in partnership the Austin Bitcoin Club, Bitcoin Commons, Round Rock Bitcoin Club, University of Texas Longhorn Club and the San Antonio Bitcoin Club.

We’ve partnered with experienced running company Tejas Trails to facilitate the race! There will be options for a 5K, 10K and 21K - a half marathon, Hal's favorite distance. There will also be a 1 mile kids race and canine race along the beautifully carved trail.

We’ll have a bitcoin market with local vendors, including MOD BIKES and Regenaissance, and meat served by Chef Johnny. We'll also have games and activities for kids, and speakers from across the local business and bitcoin ecosystem. In many ways, this is our bitcoin community's way of celebrating Satoshi's Sweet 16 party!

Marty Bent will be speaking at the event about his experience in the bitcoin industry, including bitcoin mining, venture capital, and building his media company, TFTC.  Abel James, host of the Fat Burning Man show, New York Times best seller of Wild Diet, and musician will be playing music during the event!

In the spirit of value for value, Abel James is one of the top artists on Wavlake, enabling musicians to get paid directly by fans for their music. Peggy will lead post-race yoga and stretching to help you recover! Trained in vinyasa yoga, Peggy integrates healing breathwork and exercises to integrate your trail run experience. You can also recoup post-race and utilize the cold plunge and sauna.

We want to thank our sponsors, led by Unchained, a local Austin business that helps individuals and businesses buy and hold bitcoin long term in a collaborative custody model. Yopaki, a startup based in Austin out that is creating a bitcoin neobank in Mexico and the US, is also supporting the event. Wavlake / Lightning Store are contributing some sweet Bitcoin Runners tanks, while Bitcoin Runners are also providing hats for winners of the race and more to benefit the cause.

Sign up here for the race! If you don’t want to run, you can get a GA ticket to have access to the rest of the festivities. Food will be sold separately at the event.

If you'd like to donate to support our cause raising funds in support of ALS research and care, please go here to donate in USD, or here to contribute in bitcoin. 

This is a cause near and dear to my heart, as my mom's best friend also has ALS. When I ran the 2022 Jerusalem marathon, I also raised money for ALS research. A donation of any size (or currency) would be greatly appreciated and enable us to make a bigger contribution to support the ALS Network’s Hal Finney ALS / MND Research Fund. Keep an eye out for future updates on the Running Bitcoin Challenge! Hope to see y'all at Hippo Social Club on the 26th ;)

Thank you,

Jon