HBO’s “Cash Electrical: The Bitcoin Thriller” documentary has made the daring declare that Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
The documentary, produced by Cullen Hobak, presents a number of items of circumstantial proof in its 100-minute runtime to help this conclusion.
Why HBO believes Todd is Satoshi
Todd, an early participant within the BTC group, is usually recommended to have used the Satoshi identification to reinforce Bitcoin’s credibility.
In line with Hobak, this pseudonym seemed that Bitcoin was created by a longtime cryptographer slightly than “a scholar.” Todd was ending his artwork diploma across the time Bitcoin’s whitepaper was launched in 2008.
Additional, the documentary builds its case round circumstantial proof, together with Todd’s cryptic on-line posts.
One such submit, the place Todd described himself as “the world’s main professional on how one can sacrifice your Bitcoins,” was interpreted as a potential admission that he destroyed entry to the estimated 1.1 million BTC attributed to Nakamoto.
Additional hypothesis arose from claims that Todd as soon as by accident posted from Satoshi’s account on the BitcoinTalk discussion board in 2010.
Moreover, Todd’s advocacy for the controversial Exchange-by-Charge (RBF) proposal is highlighted. The documentary means that solely somebody with intimate information of Bitcoin’s unique code—like Nakamoto—may have launched such a technical function.
Polymarket bettors had been largely improper.
HBO’s idea induced appreciable losses on the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, which had seen customers guess closely on Len Sassaman, a cypherpunk who handed away in 2021, being Satoshi. As of Oct. 5, Sassaman held a 67% chance however noticed his odds slip underneath 10% by Oct. 8.
Within the leadup to the documentary, Nick Szabo, a well known cryptographer, and Adam Again, CEO of Blockstream, emerged as frontrunners. Nevertheless, the market in the end concluded that Satoshi’s identification was both unknown or a mixture of a number of people.
The Polymarket’s pool noticed over $44 million in buying and selling quantity earlier than the movie’s launch.
Group backlash
The documentary has been met with sturdy criticism from key figures within the crypto house. Todd himself denied Hoback’s declare within the documentary, calling it “ludicrous.” He additionally expressly said on X:
“I’m not Satoshi.”
Pledditor, a well known Bitcoin group member, criticized the documentary, arguing that each one Nakamoto theories endure from affirmation bias.
Pledditor defined that theorists usually concentrate on a couple of notable figures, retroactively discovering “coincidences” to help their claims. In line with them, this system is flawed and leads to stalking and unethical doxxing. He added:
They added:
“The chance that Satoshi was any one in all these semi-public figures that usually get accused of being Satoshi is fairly slim. That’s why when you don’t have concrete proof, you must most likely hold your Satoshi Nakamoto identification theories to your self. All it does is put a $60 billion greenback bounty on the again of what’s (probably) the improper individual.”
Ki Younger Ju, the founding father of CryptoQuant, went so far as to label the documentary “disgusting” for drawing its conclusion regardless of disagreement from Bitcoin specialists. He likened it to selling a flat-earth idea with out scientific evaluation.
BitMEX Analysis additionally dismissed the speculation that Todd is Satoshi based mostly on the 2010 BitcoinTalk submit, calling the suggestion “ridiculous.” The agency said that Todd’s submit was merely a sarcastic reply to Satoshi, including:
“There’s zero cause to consider this was Satoshi.”
In the meantime, Muneeb Ali, the CEO of Belief Machines and co-creator of the Stacks blockchain, said:
“Simply so we’re all clear: peter todd shouldn’t be satoshi. anybody who has critically labored within the bitcoin trade is aware of this.”
