A new documentary attempts to uncover the true identity of the inventor of Bitcoin. But without irrefutable evidence, the myth lives on.
For years there have been rumors about the inventor of Bitcoin: Satoshi Nakamoto. Sometimes there is talk of a man who has never appeared in public since, other times of a group that developed Bitcoin under a pseudonym. A TV documentary now claims to have exposed the true inventor of the world’s oldest and best-known digital currency.
HBO’s documentary “Money Electric – The Bitcoin Mystery” claims to have solved the biggest mystery of cryptocurrency: the true identity of the inventor of Bitcoin. The filmmakers of the documentary, led by producer and director Cullen Hoback, believe that it is the Canadian crypto expert Peter Todd.
Peter Todd is known in crypto circles for his contributions to the Bitcoin codebase and his vocal support of the technology as an alternative to cash – a supposedly surveillance-resistant tool for the digital world. Todd has admitted that he tried to develop Bitcoin-like technology before Satoshi beat him to it.
Peter Todd criticized the filmmakers following its release on HBO on October 8, 2024, dismissing the claim as “ridiculous”. In the film, director Cullen Hoback confronts the alleged Satoshi Nakamoto alias Peter Todd. He showed him his evidence and asked him if he was behind the invention that is now worth a trillion dollars – a suggestion that Todd just laughed at.
“I’m warning you, it’s going to be very funny if you put this in the documentary,” Todd says in the documentary when he is confronted on camera with the claim that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. But instead of answering the question with the seriousness it deserves, Todd plays with the ambiguity and replies, “By the way, everyone is Satoshi.” Later, after the documentary aired, Todd says in an interview with the BBC: “I’m not Satoshi Nakamoto.” It was a pointless question because Satoshi would simply say no, Todd said.
The mystery surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto is not only that no one knows his true identity and it may just be a pseudonym, but also the wealth he has accumulated. It is believed that Nakamoto collected around one million Bitcoin when he founded the Bitcoin network – this corresponds to around five percent of all Bitcoins, as the Bitcoin white paper stipulates that there can be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins.
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If Satoshi still had control of his Bitcoin wallet, it would be worth around $69 billion today. That would make him the 20th richest person in the world, according to the report on “bbc.com”.
Peter Todd himself is a prominent Bitcoin developer who is credited with many innovations in the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency. However, according to the BBC report, he was never named as a main candidate for Satoshi during the years of attempts to expose the Bitcoin creator.
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The interest in finding the real Satoshi Nakamoto and solving the biggest crypto puzzle is not only great in the crypto community and among relevant Bitcoin fans. Ahead of the documentary’s release, crypto betting site Polymarket saw more than $44 million in bets on who would be credited as Satoshi in the show.
Cullen Hoback, who has previously tried to expose anonymous online figures like Q of QAnon, said he came to this conclusion that Peter Todd was Satoshi Nakamoto after years of research and interviews.
One of his main pieces of evidence that Todd is Satoshi is a forum post from December 2010 that he found during his internet research by Peter Todd, which looks like a continuation of a post by Satoshi. According to filmmaker Hoback, the grammar, syntax and timing of Todd and Satoshi’s published post would have great similarities.