In the HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, Peter Todd was named as the creator of Bitcoin. The programmer has denied this claim.
I’m not Satoshi.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) October 8, 2024
“I’m not Satoshi,” he wrote succinctly.
The film was directed by Cullen Hoback, whose previous work, Q: Into the Storm, focused on debunking the popular QAnon conspiracy theory in the United States.
The basis for the filmmakers’ assumptions was a post by Todd on the BitcoinTalk forum, allegedly published accidentally using his own profile, as noted by Forbes.
Hoback and his team also discovered a message from the programmer claiming to be “the world’s leading expert on how to donate your bitcoins” and that he had done so himself. The filmmakers interpreted this as an admission of renouncing access to approximately 1.1 million bitcoins attributed to the cryptocurrency’s creator.
At one point during an interview with Hoback, the programmer jokingly said he was “Satoshi Nakamoto and Craig Wright.” CoinDesk noted that Todd made a similar joke during Peter McCormack’s podcast What Bitcoin Did in 2019. At that time, he admitted to purchasing his first bitcoins at $0.2. This price corresponds to the coin’s rate around October 2010, nearly two years after the publication of the digital gold’s white paper.
The programmer cautioned the filmmakers against drawing incorrect conclusions about his role in the history of the first cryptocurrency.
“It’s ridiculous. It will be very funny if you include this in the documentary and bitcoiners watch it. I suspect many of them will be very pleased if you go down this path because it’s yet another example of journalists really missing the point, and it’s very funny,” Todd stated.
Before the film’s release, users actively placed bets on the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket on whom HBO would name as Bitcoin’s creator. Initially, Len Sassaman led, likely prompted by Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Alex Thorn. Then, the majority leaned towards Nick Szabo. Names such as Adam Back, Paul Le Roux, Gavin Wood, Hal Finney, Wright, and others were mentioned, but not Todd.
Back in court, the recognized “fake Satoshi” Wright opened a new account on X. In accordance with the decision, a statement was published on the page that the entrepreneur is not Satoshi Nakamoto.