Yes, I've seen it (thanks coin.cat), but... still I can't find the ultimate answer (except of course 42) to my question - how and where did early developers find Bitcoin. OK, so they were subscribed to a mailing list, how did they find it? And... is it really all?
Edit: Mailing lists? In 2008?
Uh... the early users found out from those posts in the cryptography mailing list. Those posts were the first mention of bitcoin ever. One of the repliers to that initial post was Hal Finney (who is also a famous cryptographer) who in turn was the first person to receive a payment via bitcoin, satoshi sent him 10BTC.
Yes, people still use mailing lists even today. That cryptography mailing list is still popular today. They had been discussing ideas for virtual currencies similar to bitcoin on that mailing list since 1998 hence why it was the perfect place to show it off.
The goodbye post? There really wasn't one. This is the closest thing:
It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.
Wikileaks started accepting bitcoin and bitcoin started getting media coverage because of it.
Seems like he didn't like all the attention and decided to leave.