HBO’s documentary ‘Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery’ revealed Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd as Satoshi Nakamoto, however the crypto neighborhood will not be satisfied.
Cullen Hobak, the producer of the extremely anticipated documentary, gives a number of items of alleged proof within the 100-minute-long function that led to the conclusion that Todd, an early determine within the cryptocurrency house, was Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator.
Todd has been a Bitcoin Core Developer contributing to the cryptocurrency house for a number of years. He first grew to become concerned with cryptography and blockchain-related applied sciences at a younger age, creating an curiosity in these fields in his teenage years.
His earliest documented engagement with Bitcoin dates again to the late 2000s when, at round 23 years previous, he was already energetic within the crypto neighborhood, quickly after the publication of the Bitcoin white paper in 2008.
In a 2019 podcast episode of What Bitcoin Did, Todd revealed that he was about 15 years previous when he started speaking with early Bitcoin contributors like Hal Finney and Hashcash inventor Adam Again. These early interactions helped form his later contributions to the Bitcoin house and cryptography generally.
In a 2018 interview with crypto.information, Todd revealed he labored as an analog electronics designer and a geophysics startup earlier than his pivot to Bitcoin.
He formally began working as a Bitcoin Core Developer at Coinkite in July 2014 and later held main roles, together with serving as chief scientist at tasks like Mastercoin and Darkish Pockets.
Why is Todd Satoshi?
The important thing purpose behind naming Todd stems from a group of circumstantial proof pieced collectively by Hobak, one in every of which is his cryptic on-line posts — notably one the place he referred to himself as “the world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins” — which is interpreted as veiled admissions, suggesting he might have destroyed entry to the estimated 1.1 million BTC attributed to Nakamoto.
The documentary additional fueled hypothesis with claims that Todd as soon as posted from Satoshi’s account on the BitcoinTalk discussion board in 2010, allegedly by chance.
Moreover, Todd is credited with being a key advocate for Substitute-by-Price (RBF), a controversial matter throughout the neighborhood that proposed a mechanism that might enable a previous transaction to get replaced by a brand new transaction that gives the next price. The documentary implied that this technical suggestion may have solely come from somebody with deep data of Bitcoin’s unique code—like Nakamoto.
Neighborhood debunks claims, and so does Todd
Regardless of these theories, Todd has continued to adamantly deny being Nakamoto, even earlier than the documentary aired. Extra not too long ago on Oct 8., he responded to a touch upon X asking him to return out and deny HBO’s declare, to which the developer responded “I am not Satoshi.”
The crypto neighborhood was fast to debunk HBO’s claims. Web3 researcher Pix identified a number of key factors the place the documentary went flawed.
First, Pix famous that in 2008, Peter Todd was nonetheless ending a high quality arts diploma and wasn’t even concerned within the cryptography house, making it unlikely that he would have wanted to make use of a pseudonym like Satoshi Nakamoto.
Subsequent, Pix debunked HBO’s declare a couple of 2010 BitcoinTalk submit, which steered Todd by chance revealed himself as Satoshi by not switching accounts. Pix argued {that a} follow-up submit made 13 hours later was extra possible a easy remark slightly than proof of a forgotten account swap.
Pix additionally addressed the RBF connection, explaining that Todd launched RBF in 2014, years after Satoshi had already left the scene. HBO’s suggestion that this function was pre-planned by Satoshi was dismissed as a significant stretch.
Lastly, Pix tackled the “sacrificing bitcoins” message, clarifying that Todd’s cryptic remark was a joke about blockchain integrity, not an admission of destroying entry to Satoshi’s 1.1 million BTC. This key piece of proof, based on Pix, was taken wildly out of context, additional discrediting HBO’s claims.
Amongst different non-believers was CryptoQuant researcher Ki Younger Ju, who labeled the documentary “disgusting.”
“It’s baffling they reached this conclusion when all the #Bitcoin experts disagree,” Ju wrote in an Oct. 9 X submit.
BitMEX Analysis additionally joined the skeptics, calling the proof offered by HBO “clearly ridiculous” and stating that there was “zero reason” to consider Peter Todd is Satoshi.
Distinguished figures in the neighborhood like Adam Again, who has lengthy been linked to Bitcoin’s early growth, and Satoshi himself, didn’t help the idea both. Again, who was featured within the documentary, shunned giving credence to the hypothesis and easily acknowledged, “no one knows who Satoshi is.”
Different market observers known as the conclusion nothing however sloppy journalism.
A shock for Polymarket bettors
Polymarket, a preferred prediction market platform, had listed odds on who HBO’s documentary would determine as Satoshi Nakamoto. Nevertheless, Peter Todd was not initially included as a betting possibility.
Bettors had been primarily targeted on figures like Nick Szabo and Len Sassaman, each of whom have been steadily speculated as Bitcoin’s creators. Different contenders included Hal Finney and Elon Musk amongst others.
This omission is one other testomony to how sudden and extensively dismissed the documentary’s declare about Todd really was.
