HBO Documentation Names Suspected Bitcoin Creator

The man identified in a new HBO documentary as Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto has something to say: Wrong again, world.

In the just-released HBO film about the history of the world’s largest digital currency – Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery – documentary filmmaker Cullen Hoback concludes that the anonymous creator of Bitcoin was none other than a long-time member of the community and early Bitcoin developer Peter Todd.

Todd denied the claim in the documentary released yesterday and denied it again when asked The registry.

“(Hoback’s) proof that I am Satoshi is the same kind of chance-based, circumstantial thinking that fuels conspiracies like QAnon,” Todd told us in an email. “That’s ironic, considering (Hoback’s) previous major project was a documentary about QAnon. He clearly didn’t try to debunk his theories either.”

Hoback’s previous project – Q: Into the Storm – aimed to unmask the person behind QAnon, which may have sparked his interest in uncovering Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. However, Todd thinks Hoback was just trying to drum up interest in his new film.

“I think (Hoback) only included Satoshi’s claim as a marketing ploy: he was really making a documentary about Bitcoin and needed a hook to get media attention,” Todd said. ‘He chose me as his accuser, mainly because I was an unlikely candidate, which created even more attention.

“I don’t think he had any interest in finding out the real truth.”

To be honest, the documentary comes across as a history of Bitcoin, its spread and the key figures in its rise – Satoshi suspects among them. It features interviews with a number of potential Satoshis, including Adam Back, inventor of Bitcoin predecessor Hashcash, who is portrayed in the film as the other most likely candidate to be the man behind Bitcoin. Indications that the film ultimately focuses on Nakamoto’s identity are present throughout, but always as an extra layer of uncertainty on top of something that’s more about the transformation of analog currency into digital form.

Todd even admits early in the film that people suspected him of being Satoshi, denying the claim while simultaneously engaging in the common joke, “Oh, I’m Satoshi,” a phrase often used among Bitcoin insiders concerned with the ‘norms’. around them.

“You’re pretty creative. You come up with some crazy theories,” Todd said to Hoback at the end of the film when confronted with the accusation that he was Nakamoto. “It’s ridiculous, but it’s the kind of theory that someone who spends their time as a documentary journalist would come up with.”

Not exactly an airtight case

The key information in Hoback’s documentary linking Todd to being Nakamoto comes from two items: a series of conversations between Todd and an unidentified individual calling himself “John Dillon” who claimed to be in the intelligence agency for the US government worked and advocated for replacement. by-fee (RBF) implementation for the Bitcoin blockchain. Todd later added RBF to the Bitcoin platform.

Hoback claimed that Todd used Dillon as a pseudonymous mouthpiece to push his own ideas, the same thing he claims Todd did while posing as Nakamoto on the BitcoinTalk forum.

Referring to one of Todd’s first posts on the forum — a direct response to Nakamoto’s comment about transaction fees causing blockchain inputs and outputs not to exactly match — Hoback concludes that Todd accidentally logged into his new account under his real name, intending to reply as Nakamoto , as the post seemed to continue the same line of thought.

However, Todd pointed out a comment on YCombinator from fellow early Bitcoin developer Greg Maxwell (also mentioned in the documentary as a potential Nakamoto suspect), who notes that Todd’s account was called “retep” at the time and was only later renamed.

“If Satoshi had actually made that mistake, the obvious thing to do would be to simply leave the account. Not changing the username to your legal name a few years later,” Todd said. “(Hoback) could have easily checked this himself, or by asking us after the interview if the theory made any sense. But he didn’t.”

Hiding your identity when people aren’t seriously looking for you isn’t actually that difficult

Ultimately, it’s unlikely anyone will ever discover the truth behind Nakamoto’s identity — or, if they did, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to prove it, Todd said in the documentary.

“If I were Satoshi, I would have destroyed my ability to prove that I am Satoshi, because then you would never be tempted,” Todd said at the beginning of the film. He told us it was unlikely we would ever know who Satoshi actually is, and noted that “hiding your identity when people aren’t seriously looking for you isn’t actually that difficult,” probably a swipe at Hoback, from who he said His conclusion deserves ridicule because it puts a giant target on Todd’s back.

It is unknown how much Bitcoin Nakamoto has, but it is estimated that thousands of addresses associated with the unknown person (or individuals) hold as much as 1.1 million BTC, which at current market rates is worth almost $70 billion.

“Falsely accusing an ordinary person of ordinary wealth because they own tens of billions of dollars puts them at risk for obvious reasons,” Todd told us. “Cullen knows damn well he’s putting my life in danger to promote his film; I’ve personally had to make a number of emergency trips to reduce the risks to myself.”

Todd said the community’s joke that everyone is Satoshi is partly to downplay the risk to others. “Everyone in the Bitcoin community knows this,” he said.

At the end of the film, Todd seems visibly annoyed at being directly accused of being Nakamoto. In response, he sarcastically claims that he is not only Satoshi, but also Craig Wright (who claimed to be Nakamoto, but turned out not to be), which he later told us to ridicule Hoback’s claims.

“This is going to be really funny when you put this in the documentary and a bunch of Bitcoiners watch it,” Todd said at the end of the film. He said his accusation will thrill the Bitcoin community because it is “another example of journalists really missing the point in a way that is very funny.”

“The point is to make Bitcoin the global currency, and people like you who are distracted by nonsense could potentially do well with that,” he added.

For anyone interested in watching the HBO documentary, it is available now and offers an interesting look at the history of Bitcoin and its rise as a global influence. As for whether it actually exposed Nakamoto, we’re actually as close to knowing the truth as we were two days ago. ®