HBO Documentary Dubs Bitcoin Developer Peter Todd As Satoshi Nakamoto

Key Takeaways:

• A new HBO documentary called “Money Electric: The Bitcoin History” has caused quite a stir after it claimed blockchain software developer Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin. 
• The Canadian is a long-time contributor to the Bitcoin network and one of the few individuals who have publicly communicated with the pseudonymous father of Bitcoin.
• Director Cullen Hoback believes Todd to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto because of a comment he seemingly made in a chat blog that he was the “world’s leading expert” in sacrificing Bitcoins. Hoback also claims Todd to have made comments under a post by Nakamoto, which have been thwarted as being “ridiculous” by experts. 
• Peter Todd denied the allegation, stating that it is a “ludicrous” claim to make and one that puts his life in danger because the documentary falsely alleges that he has in his possession 1.1 million BTC that belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto. 

An HBO documentary aired about the history and origins of Bitcoin has identified Peter Todd as the pseudonymous creator of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency. The 39-year-old Canadian software developer is known for his longtime contributions to Bitcoin as a consultant and core developer. 

He has also been involved with the development of other crypto and blockchain technologies, such as OpenTimestamps, Counterparty, Mastercoin, and ZCash. 

HBO Documentary Claims Bitcoin Developer Peter Todd Is The Real Satoshi Nakamoto

The documentary titled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin History”, directed by Cullen Hoback, suggests that Todd once made a comment in a chat blog where he called himself the “world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins”. The director argues that this statement is him admitting that he might have destroyed access to the 1.1 million BTC, worth approximately $65 billion, that is said to be held in Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet. 

Hoback also claimed that Todd had replied to a 2010 BitcoinTalk forum post by Nakamoto using his personal account. However, Todd went on X to deny the allegations, saying that he is not Satoshi and dismissing the documentary’s claims as “ludicrous” and a product stemmed from a “lack of research” even before it aired. 

BitMex Research also echoed the Bitcoin developer, stating that some of the evidence presented in the documentary was “clearly ridiculous” and there was no reason to believe it. 

Peter Todd Among The Few Who Communicated With Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto

Peter Todd is among the few individuals who publicly communicated with Nakamoto about the code and features behind Bitcoin before the pseudonymous founder disappeared in 2011. He was 23 when Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper, which outlined the vision for a decentralized peer-to-peer payment system. 

During a podcast interview in 2019, Todd admitted that he was about 15 when he first started communicating with early Bitcoin contributors Hal Finney and Hashcash inventor Adam Back. 

Since 2014, Todd has been working as a Bitcoin core developer at Coinkite, a Bitcoin hardware and security solutions provider. He is also the board adviser to the digital collectible platform Verisart. 

He has held high-ranking positions across the crypto industry, including serving as chief scientist at Mastercoin, a digital currency and communications protocol built atop the Bitcoin network. Todd is also the chief scientist at Dark Wallet, an open-source Bitcoin wallet. He took up both roles in 2014. 

In 2016, he took part in Zcash’s trusted setup ceremony, where he helped set up cryptographic keys for securing wallets and blockchain protocols. However, he called his time with the project “pointless” because he didn’t think that the Zcash trusted setup should be called a multiparty computation. 

Todd Is Not The First Person To Be Mistaken For Satoshi 

Despite all the frenzy surrounding the real identity of the infamous yet mysterious Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, Todd’s name wasn’t even listed as a betting option on the popular betting site Polymarket after leaked footage from the documentary hinted at his naming. Speculators were expecting the series to name other prominent figures like Len Sassaman, Adam Back, and Nick Szabo, with Todd’s name falling into the general category of bets. 

Electric Money is not the first journalistic attempt to discover the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2014, a Newsweek story claimed that a 64-year-old California man named Dorian Nakamoto was the inventor of Bitcoin, only for him to threaten the outlet for “reckless reporting”. 

A year later, Wired magazine published stories about Australian businessman and computer scientist Craig Wright as the father of Bitcoin. Their evidence was based on a trove of documents and emails that purported to reveal Wright’s intimate involvement in the development of the apex cryptocurrency. However, since then, a UK court found him to have been lying about his involvement, including forging documents to back his claims. Craig Wright is currently facing criminal perjury charges. 

In an email to the Intelligencer, Todd said that accusing people of being Satoshi “places big risks on them”. He compared it to the way QAnon conspirators broke into pizza joints looking for kidnapped children because of Hoback’s documentary on the subject. He added that falsely accusing someone of having a fortune in Bitcoin invites “all kinds of harm”. 

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