HBOâs âMoney Electric: The Bitcoin Mysteryâ documentary has made the bold claim that Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
The documentary, produced by Cullen Hobak, presents several pieces of circumstantial evidence in its 100-minute runtime to support this conclusion.
Why HBO believes Todd is Satoshi
Todd, an early participant in the BTC community, is suggested to have used the Satoshi identity to enhance Bitcoinâs credibility.
According to Hobak, this pseudonym gave the impression that Bitcoin was created by an established cryptographer rather than âa student.â Todd was finishing his art degree around the time Bitcoinâs whitepaper was released in 2008.
Further, the documentary builds its case around circumstantial evidence, including Toddâs cryptic online posts.
One such post, where Todd described himself as âthe worldâs leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins,â was interpreted as a possible admission that he destroyed access to the estimated 1.1 million BTC attributed to Nakamoto.
Further speculation arose from claims that Todd once accidentally posted from Satoshiâs account on the BitcoinTalk forum in 2010.
Additionally, Toddâs advocacy for the controversial Replace-by-Fee (RBF) proposal is highlighted. The documentary suggests that only someone with intimate knowledge of Bitcoinâs original codeâlike Nakamotoâcould have introduced such a technical feature.
Polymarket bettors were mostly wrong.
HBOâs theory caused considerable losses on the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, which had seen users bet heavily on Len Sassaman, a cypherpunk who passed away in 2021, being Satoshi. As of Oct. 5, Sassaman held a 67% probability but saw his odds slip under 10% by Oct. 8.
In the leadup to the documentary, Nick Szabo, a well-known cryptographer, and Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, emerged as frontrunners. However, the market ultimately concluded that Satoshiâs identity was either unknown or a combination of multiple individuals.
The Polymarketâs pool saw over $44 million in trading volume before the filmâs release.
Community backlash
The documentary has been met with strong criticism from key figures in the crypto space. Todd himself denied Hobackâs claim in the documentary, calling it âludicrous.â He also expressly stated on X:
âIâm not Satoshi.â
Pledditor, a well-known Bitcoin community member, criticized the documentary, arguing that all Nakamoto theories suffer from confirmation bias.
Pledditor explained that theorists often focus on a few notable figures, retroactively finding âcoincidencesâ to support their claims. According to them, this methodology is flawed and results in stalking and unethical doxxing. He added:
They added:
âThe likelihood that Satoshi was any one of these semi-public figures that regularly get accused of being Satoshi is pretty slim. Thatâs why if you donât have concrete proof, you should probably keep your Satoshi Nakamoto identity theories to yourself. All it does is put a $60 billion dollar bounty on the back of what is (most likely) the wrong person.â
Ki Young Ju, the founder of CryptoQuant, went as far as to label the documentary âdisgustingâ for drawing its conclusion despite disagreement from Bitcoin experts. He likened it to promoting a flat-earth theory without scientific review.
BitMEX Research also dismissed the theory that Todd is Satoshi based on the 2010 BitcoinTalk post, calling the suggestion âridiculous.â The firm stated that Toddâs post was simply a sarcastic reply to Satoshi, adding:
âThere is zero reason to believe this was Satoshi.â
Meanwhile, Muneeb Ali, the CEO of Trust Machines and co-creator of the Stacks blockchain, stated:
âJust so we are all clear: peter todd is not satoshi. anyone who has seriously worked in the bitcoin industry knows this.â