The identity of bitcoin's inventor has been a mystery, but the creator of a new HBO documentary believes he may have uncovered the person's identity.
Cullen Hoback believes he may have uncovered "Satoshi Nakamoto," the alias that bitcoin's inventor used online. Bitcoin's inventor could personally control a cryptocurrency stash worth tens of billions of dollars, according to The Washington Post.
His documentary, "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery," premiered Tuesday on HBO.
Hoback suggests that instead of a programming expert or criminal mastermind, the real Nakamoto is Peter Todd, a developer from Canada who would have been in college when the cryptocurrency was created.
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The filmmaker does not show indisputable proof linking Todd to the Satoshi Nakamoto alias in his documentary, but he does string together intriguing coincidences and forum posts to make the case that Todd is likely the person.
"We're making a very strong case," Hoback told The Washington Post. "And ultimately, I want to leave it up to the audience to draw their own conclusion."
Todd denied inventing bitcoin, and said Hoback and others seeking to uncover the identity of bitcoin's founder should end their search.
"Not only is the question dumb, it’s dangerous," Todd told The Washington Post. "Satoshi obviously didn’t want to be found, for good reasons, and no one should help people trying to find Satoshi."
Nakamoto would be very wealthy if they still have access to the roughly 1 million bitcoins they obtained in the early days of cryptocurrencies, which would be worth about $65 billion, according to The Washington Post. Nakamoto could become even more wealthy if bitcoin's price continues to increase, which Hoback says is a reason it is important to reveal Nakamoto's identity.
"They're on track to becoming the richest person on Earth eventually," Hoback said.
Todd told The Washington Post that due to Nakamoto's potential wealth, Hoback's claim that he is the bitcoin inventor could make him a target for kidnappers or other criminals. Todd said he was taking a trip to escape potential danger ahead of the documentary's release.
"Falsely claiming that ordinary people of ordinary wealth are extraordinarily rich exposes them to threats like robbery and kidnapping," Todd said.
The evidence Hoback cites as his "smoking gun" dates back to the cryptocurrency’s early days, when Todd and Nakamoto in 2010 had a discussion on a bitcoin forum.
In the first post, Nakamoto details a solution to a complex problem bitcoin was facing. Todd, who had joined the forum a few days earlier and would later claim to have had little knowledge of bitcoin until several years later, responded about 90 minutes later to correct the bitcoin inventor.
"Of course, to be specific, the inputs and outputs can’t match *exactly* if the second transaction has a transaction fee," Todd said to Nakamoto.
Based on the posts, Hoback came to the conclusion that Todd did not intend to write back to Nakamoto. Hoback says Todd may have been switching between aliases and mixed up his two accounts on the forum, and meant for his correction under Todd's name to be made under Nakamoto's name.
"Is he responding, or is he continuing a thought?" Hoback asks in the documentary.
A few days after the exchange on the forum, Nakamoto stopped posting online entirely and Todd vanished from the forum for several years.
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Hoback also notes that while many of the other Nakamoto candidates are expert coders, the inventor's coding has been called amateurish, which would be consistent with Todd's background at the time.
Nakamoto wrote more about bitcoin during the summer months, suggesting that his real occupation followed an academic calendar.
The bitcoin inventor also uses the British spelling for words, which Hoback says would make sense, given Todd’s Canadian background.
Other journalists have previously attempted to solve the mystery of the bitcoin inventor's identity, but many have either been debunked or failed to catch on.
