A new documentary claims to have solved cryptocurrency’s biggest mystery: the true identity of Bitcoin’s inventor.
The question has captivated the Web since the launch of the digital currency by one or more unknown people calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.
Now, the makers of an HBO movie say they finally have the answer: Canadian cryptography expert Peter Todd.
But Mr Todd called it “ridiculous” and criticized the documentary.
In Cash Electrical: The Bitcoin Thriller, Peter Todd confronts filmmaker Cullen Hoback.
Mr. Hoback shows him his evidence and asks if he was behind this invention that now costs billions of {dollars} – a suggestion Mr. Todd scoffs at.
“I’m not Satoshi Nakamoto,” he told the BBC.
The intrigue surrounding Satoshi is not only due to the mystery of their identity, but also the enormous wealth they have accumulated.
If they still had control of their Bitcoin wallet, it would be worth around $69 billion today, meaning Satoshi would be around the 20th richest person in the world.
Peter Todd is a prominent Bitcoin developer and has been credited with many improvements in the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency.
But he was never named as a top Satoshi candidate in the years people spent trying to unmask the inventor of Bitcoin.
This latest attempt to solve this conundrum is attracting enormous interest. Before the release of the documentary, over $44 million was placed in bets on crypto betting site Polymarket on who the program would name Satoshi.
Cullen Hoback, who has previously attempted to unmask anonymous online personalities like Q from Q Anon, says he came to this conclusion after years of research and interviews.
One of his pieces of evidence that Mr. Todd is Satoshi is a discussion board message he found from Peter Todd that appeared to be a continuation of Satoshi’s.
Another reason is that he once said online that he deliberately destroyed a large number of digital coins.
A leading theory is that Satoshi deliberately destroyed access to his huge stash of bitcoins which were the originals created to start bitcoin.
The 1.1 million coins are now worth a fortune but have never been spent or transferred.
Satoshi’s pool of unmoved coins represents 5% of all bitcoins, because the inventor decided there would only ever be 21 million coins created.
Mr. Todd says Mr. Hoback’s testimony is based solely on coincidence and misinterprets his online activity.
“I’m not Satoshi.” When I first read the Bitcoin whitepaper, my reaction was “Damn! I should have thought of that,” he said.
Mr Todd also says he was forced to move away from his home for fear of attacks from potential criminals.
A number of people in the IT world have already been named as the creator of the cryptocurrency.
In 2014, a high-profile article in Newsweek identified Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese American living in California, as Satoshi. But he denied it and the claim has been widely refuted.
In 2015, Wired and Gizmodo published an investigation involving Australian computer scientist Craig Wright.
Shortly afterward, Wright said in media interviews: including the BBCthat he was indeed Satoshi and showed apparent proof of it.
But his claims were ignored by the community and after years of claiming to be the inventor, a UK High Court judge ruled there was “overwhelming” evidence that he was not Satoshi .
Tech billionaire and cryptocurrency enthusiast Elon Musk has also denied being behind the cryptocurrency. after a former employee of one of his companies, SpaceX, suggested it.
For some of Bitcoin’s most prominent voices, keeping Satoshi’s identity a secret is part of the decentralized currency’s appeal and power.
Adam Black, one of the lead developers (and another potential Satoshi candidate) posted on X before the documentary: “No one knows who Satoshi is. and that’s a good thing.
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