HBO Documentary Claims to Expose Bitcoin’s Creator

No one knows who is behind Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the founder of Bitcoin. Or no one knew until now: Cullen Hoback, director of the documentary”Money Electric: The Secret of Bitcoin which premiered on HBO, claims to have solved the mystery. Canadian Peter Todd, a programmer who contributed to Bitcoin in its early days, presumably Nakamoto.

“I am not Satoshi,” Todd said after the documentary premiered in a statement to CNN, where he accused Hoback of being “irresponsible” by pointing to him as the supposed creator of Bitcoin. “It turns some coincidences into something much more important,” says the Canadian. Since Bitcoin’s founding in January 2009, Nakamoto’s identity has been the subject of intense debate and extensive investigations that have failed to find conclusive evidence.

The evidence in the documentary, which Todd believes was exaggerated to identify him as the supposed creator of Bitcoin, is based on a three-year investigation in which Hoback and his team delved into the depths of old Internet forums. , collecting messages and comments. They also interviewed early Bitcoin participants.

The most compelling clue on which the documentary is based is a 2010 conversation on a Bitcoin forum in which Todd responded to Nakamoto’s post in a way that seemed to continue the Bitcoin creator’s line of thought. This reply, following Nakamoto’s comment thread, suggests that it was actually a reply that should have been made from Nakamoto’s account, but Todd made a mistake and made it from his personal profile.

The documentary also points out other suspicious elements, such as Todd’s old resume claiming to be proficient in the programming language used to write the original Bitcoin codebase. Knowledge that the Canadian would later deny; or a fake account he may have created to hide his trail while creating a new Bitcoin feature known as fee substitution. Hoback also emphasizes the similarities in style between Todd’s and Nakamoto’s works.

With this entire list, the director confronts Todd himself on camera and points to him as the man behind the pseudonym. He calls the idea “ridiculous” but doesn’t give an alternative name. He ridicules this idea, but does not outright deny it. While the documentary offers a coherent and plausible theory, it is yet another unsuccessful attempt to uncover Nakamoto’s identity. Hoback cannot provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he has tracked down the creator of Bitcoin.

The identity of Bitcoin’s creator isn’t the first internet mystery Hoback has sought out. In his previous work, the documentary series “Question: In a storm” said the man behind QAnon. Although Todd denies that he is Nakamoto, Hoback remains convinced that it is him.

The director of the documentary is not the first to try to reveal Nakamoto’s identity. An article was published in 2014 Newsweek He pointed to physicist Dorian Nakamoto as the creator of Bitcoin, although it was later shown that he had nothing to do with the cryptocurrency. A year later, journalist New York TimesNathaniel Popper pointed to Nick Szabo, a Hungarian-American who created a digital currency very similar to Bitcoin. Szabo also denies being behind the pseudonym.

Whether the mystery is solved or not, a new HBO documentary once again turns the spotlight on the identity of Bitcoin’s creator and why it matters. Although Nakamoto stopped promoting Bitcoin in 2011, he still controls (or so it is believed) a wallet with over one million Bitcoins, which would be 5% of the total supply. At current prices, according to current estimates, this portfolio would be worth about $60 billion, which automatically makes its owner one of the richest people in the world. Nakamoto’s identification also raises other, less positive questions, such as his possible complicity in Bitcoin-related crimes.

Since Bitcoin began 15 years ago, it has become one of the greatest financial phenomena of the century and a store of value for those looking for an alternative to traditional money. Now Bitcoin has also become an online currency for illegal products and services. The popularity of the cryptocurrency, which has received support from figures such as Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, has even led central banks to consider its existence as a potential competitor.