HBO Bitcoin Documentary: Fact or Fiction?
HBO recently released a documentary on the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Within the documentary, the filmmaker makes a stance on who he believes the face behind the name Satoshi Nakamoto is. But now that he has named names, many individuals are wondering whether the documentary holds any truth.
Keep reading to learn more about the new HBO Bitcoin documentary and whether or not it can be taken as the true research.
What Does the Documentary Say About Satoshi Nakamoto?
The HBO Bitcoin documentary, named Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, features documentary maker Cullen Hoback who walks viewers through his reasoning as to the real individual behind the name Satoshi Nakamoto.
In his eyes, Satoshi Nakamoto must be someone who was involved in Bitcoin early on who would have the technical knowledge to build such a cryptocurrency. He also states that the person must have a reason to hide, otherwise they would have already revealed themselves publicly.
This has led him to name Peter Todd, who was in his early 20s at the time of Bitcoin’s launch in 2008, as Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoback believes that Todd made the BitcoinTalk account under the name John Dillon to hide his identity (and age) before accidentally posting from his own account in 2010 when he proposed Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 125.
Hoback backs up his theory with a chat log, as well as several BitcoinTalk threads. He additionally thinks that Todd lost access to his Satoshi Nakamoto coins, which is why he has remained anonymous all these years.
Who is Peter Todd?
Peter Todd is a Canadian comedian who has been involved and outspoken about Bitcoin since its inception. Beyond contributing to BIP 125, he was also a major part of the blocksize war which waged from 2015-2017. Todd’s side eventually won, leading to the BitcoinCash hard fork.
Todd founded OpenTimestamps, which is a protocol for providing standard timestamping in blockchains. He has also contributed to many Bitcoin projects, such as Counterparty, Mastercoin, and Colored Coins. He is even a personal friend of Edward Snowden and the two of them created Zcash together and Snowden left Todd to destroy the evidence.
All of this is very impressive, of course, but does this make him Satoshi Nakamoto?
Is Peter Todd Satoshi Nakamoto?
There is no doubt that Peter Todd is a smart coder who has been involved with the Bitcoin blockchain since 2010. However, since the airing of the documentary, Todd has vehemently denied being Satoshi Nakamoto.
He states that Hoback is grasping at straws, desperate to fill his show with information even though the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto has been investigated before to no avail. He also has had to, sadly, leave his home for fear of thieves due to the airing of the documentary.
But could Peter Todd be lying?
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Why Lie About Being Satoshi Nakamoto?
We believe that there is a chance that anyone (not just Peter Todd) who has been labeled as being Satoshi Nakamoto before denying it in the past, could actually be Satoshi Nakamoto and is lying about it. This is for several reasons.
First and foremost, the Bitcoin wallets thought to be held by the individual Satoshi Nakamoto are currently worth over $70 billion dollars. This is no paltry sum and would make Satoshi Nakamoto the 20th richest person in the world if he or she came forward.
With that amount of money, you lose any sort of peace and anonymity that using an anonymous name provides and a giant target is painted on your back. We suspect that an anonymous name was chosen by Nakamoto for this exact reason.
Plus, if the individual was to come forward and claim their wealth there would be a whole host of taxes involved and they could even get into trouble with their local government for not having filed taxes earlier.
Which brings us to our last reason as to why someone would lie about being Satoshi Nakamoto—the government where this individual lives could put them under scrutiny or even arrest them because of their role inventing Bitcoin. While this isn’t a given, we know that the reality of being Satoshi Nakamoto sheds a lot of legal repercussions on whoever it is.
So, while we don’t necessarily believe that Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto, if he was, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he is lying about it.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
This is the age old question that people are dying to know, and we can tell you right now we are no closer to solving the mystery than you are. We have no idea who the individual behind this technology is, or why he wanted to remain anonymous, but he has so far been successful in doing so.
Related: Who Owns the Most Bitcoin?
Will Satoshi Nakamoto Ever Come Forward?
We are writing this in 2024, sixteen years after the invention of Bitcoin, and we have to say that it is very likely at this point that Satoshi Nakamoto will never reveal him or herself. At this point, though the money in their wallets grows, so do the legal implications if they were to reveal their true identity.
Some individuals argue that Satoshi will appear when they need the money from their accounts (as there are hundreds of individuals tracking these wallets for any activity). But we think that if the individuals known as Satoshi Nakamoto needed money, they would have already revealed themselves and moved the currency around previously.
Which brings up our next point. We think Satoshi Nakamoto is still out there, and that he has other non-traceable wallets. Although he or she hasn’t stepped forward to claim their fortune, we think they have still made money through Bitcoin regardless and don’t need what is in those original wallets.
Obviously, we might be wrong, as we aren’t Satoshi Nakamoto, but it just seems too convenient that Satoshi took so many steps to hide his tracks if he did plan to reveal himself at some point.
Overall, if you want to learn more about the people behind Bitcoin, then you may enjoy the HBO documentary. Just know that Peter Todd, named in the documentary, states firmly that he is not Satoshi Nakamoto so take anything “revealed” on screen with a grain of salt.
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