In early fall, HBO promised viewers “a bombshell that will shake up the entire crypto world” and announced the release of the documentary “Money Electric. The Bitcoin Mystery.” In the ad campaign, the American TV network promised to unravel the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity by presenting viewers with new, irrefutable evidence.

The documentary premiered on October 8, 2024, sparking heated discussions and forcing the main “figurehead” of the film crew’s suspicions to go into hiding for his personal safety. 

Were the filmmakers able to establish the identity of the Bitcoin creator? What do we know about Satoshi Nakamoto and what are the most likely versions of who he really is?

Let’s find out what is actually known about the creator of the first cryptocurrency and what new theories about Satoshi Nakamoto exist.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

This fall, bitcoin turned 16 years old: on October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper of the first cryptocurrency with a description of an open source peer-to-peer network that excludes double spending. The project’s technical documentation described the concept of a decentralized digital currency operating without intermediaries. 

More than two months later, on January 3, 2009, Satoshi created the first Genesis block and the blockchain actually began to function. The first coins were worth cents, and only in 2011 did the price of BTC cross the $1 threshold. 

Now the experimental work of sixteen years ago has turned into a trillion-dollar asset, one of the most expensive in the world — its capitalization today is already more than $1.8 trillion.

Nakamoto’s accounts, as the first miner, have over one million BTC left (to be more precise, according to Whale Alert’s calculations — 1,122,693). That is, based on the total number of bitcoins at the time of writing, the mysterious Satoshi owns about 5.7% of the entire issue. This amount of the first cryptocurrency in his possession makes him one of the richest people on the planet. If not the richest. 

His last post on BitcoinTalk was December 13, 2010 — he hasn’t been online in 14 years. His wallets have been “dormant” ever since.

The only known message Satoshi sent later was his email reply to Bitcoin Foundation developer and co-founder Mike Hearn in 2011. At the time, he wrote that he had “moved on to other things” and that the project was “in the capable hands of Gavin” (apparently Gavin Andresen). This is where Satoshi Nakamoto’s traces on the Internet ended. 

Little is known about Satoshi Nakamoto, and most of the available information is mythologized. The results of research into the personality of the creator of bitcoin, quite laconic. Here is what humanity knows about him today:

• Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym of a person or a group of people. Most likely, possessing outstanding intelligence and extensive specialized knowledge in programming, cryptography and economics. 
• The biography of Satoshi Nakamoto is unknown to us. Neither is his date of birth. In the crypto community it is believed that he was born on April 5, 1975. Under this date is summed up a whole theory based on the dates of adoption / cancellation of the ban on gold storage, in force in the U.S. since April 5, 1933. On this distant day it was signed, and the abolition took place only in 1975, then Americans got freedom in the disposal of gold. 
• In his profile on the P2P Foundation website, the anonymous genius claimed to be from Japan. However, a linguistic analysis of Satoshi Nakamoto’s posts suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto has nothing to do with Japan. The white paper was written in perfect English, and he also wrote his first name before his last name, which is not the custom in Japan. From his posts, we can infer that he is a confident speaker of the British version of English, and most likely lives in London. Also providing vivid evidence, if not of origin, then of location, was the headline from the British newspaper The Times of January 3, 2009, used by Satoshi in the hash value of the Genesis block: “Chancellor on brink of second bank bailout”. Whether Satoshi did this to emphasize the dependence of traditional banks on government action or simply to record that the first bitcoin block was not created before that date is not known. 

Why did he disappear?

He stopped all communication with the outside world during the active phase of the project’s development. There are many speculations and rumors as to why Satoshi Nakamoto went into hiding.

• One of the versions suggests problems with criminality. The criminal world was one of the first to appreciate all the charms of anonymity and untraceability of bitcoin, and it is not known how this popularity in dark circles could affect the fate of the creator of the first cryptocurrency. According to one hypothesis, he was even linked to the Yakuza.
• Another theory was based on the fact that he was simply “addicted” to anonymity. In particular, he always entered the network using the Tor browser, the essence of which is the settings for increased privacy, confidentiality and encryption. It is possible that it was his principled position in observing the issues of anonymity that caused the disappearance of the creator of bitcoin.
• Another version attributes his disappearance to increasing criticism of his actions and policies regarding bitcoin by other members of the crypto community. And Satoshi, who adhered to the philosophy of ideal decentralization, did not want to be a source of control and therefore decided to go into the shadows. As a result, he removed his name from the copyright statement and made changes to bitcoin.org, adding the contacts of other active developers.

Versions of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity

As the popularity and value of bitcoin grew, the list of possible candidates for the role of Satoshi Nakamoto lengthened. The media periodically blazed with loud headlines: “Satoshi Nakamoto’s secret comes true!”, “Satoshi Nakamoto’s revelation!”, and the like. As a result, the crypto community is engaged in heated discussions, analysts are organizing fact-checks of the proposed versions, and opinion leaders are expressing their authoritative points of view. And how could it be otherwise? After all, the personality of the creator of the first cryptocurrency, a brilliant man and anonymous billionaire, excites minds. And both crypto-enthusiasts and journalists do not lose patience and persistence in conducting more and more investigations about Satoshi Nakamoto. 

Let’s go through the main existing versions that claim to reveal Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity, starting with the latest news.

New theory: the sensational HBO premiere

On October 8, 2024, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery premiered on HBO. It was supposed to feature the unmasking of Satoshi Nakamoto, and the public hotly debated which candidate would have the veil of secrecy lifted.

The documentary was directed by the indefatigable Cullen Hoback, a well-known debunker of conspiracy theories. The director rose to fame with the TV series “Q: Into the Storm,” in which he brought QAnon to light. QAnon brings together followers of a conspiracy theory popular in the US, according to which Donald Trump will save humanity by exposing a colossal global network of child sexual exploitation. It is clear that the bloodthirsty scheme involves the entire top of the Democratic Party, which worships Satan in parallel.

But as it turns out, the anticipation of another revelation was in vain. In this film, the director did not reveal the conspiracy theory surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto, but instead offered a more than controversial candidate.

The film claims that the pseudonym of the Bitcoin creator is Peter Todd, a Canadian developer who allegedly left a message from Satoshi Nakamoto on the BitcoinTalk forum in 2010 and forgot to log out of his account. 

Here it is:

Also, the director talks about Todd’s circumstantial evidence for owning a million BTC. For example, based on the fact that the developer wrote that he is “the world’s expert on bitcoin donations”.

Todd, who generally has a humorously sarcastic manner in both spoken and written dialog, ridiculed and refuted Hoback’s conclusions. Yes, he called himself Nakamoto in jest, and yes, his online posts were written with sharp humor, but he is not Satoshi. 

In fact, Peter Todd is an influential independent developer, a key figure in the development of bitcoin, and a leading security expert in decentralized technologies. However, there are significant inconsistencies in the chronology: Todd began developing bitcoin in 2014, and in 2008, when the first cryptocurrency was born, Todd was in college studying humanities. Todd also provided his photos of events that took place alongside Satoshi’s BitcoinTalk postings.

In the end, according to the general opinion of crypto experts and analysts, “the director lied from the heart”, the film was built on fakes and conjecture, and its main purpose — the hype around the legend of the creator of bitcoin. With which, by the way, the director coped very well. A massive marketing campaign was conducted, as a result of which the HBO audience (which is more than 95,000,000 subscribers) and millions of other viewers became closer to cryptocurrencies. Even if it was thanks to the not-so-slim version of the exposé offered by the film’s creators.

The only person affected by the story was Peter Todd, who ended up going into hiding. He told WIRED that after the film, he was literally bombarded with letters (25 in two days) from a crazy person demanding money to pay off the loan. 

Other theories

Despite numerous theories, the most likely candidates are still Nick Szabo and Hal Finney. However, the former leads a closed lifestyle and denies in every possible way his participation in the creation of bitcoin, and the latter — died back in 2014, having managed to inform before his death that Satoshi is not him.

On the other hand, there are people who try in vain to prove their involvement, such as Craig Steven Wright. Or simply theories that can neither be confirmed nor disproved. For example, the pseudonym of the “father of cryptocurrency” is an acronym consisting of the names of Japanese technology brands: SAmsung, TOSHIba, NAKAmichi and MOTOrola. Or when the coincidence of a person’s real name with the name of Satoshi Nakamoto creates suspicion of involvement in the creation of the first cryptocurrency. As was the case with the American programmer of Japanese descent Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, who was the victim of speculation by journalists from Newsweek.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s Personality and the Future of Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto’s impact on cryptocurrency as its creator is colossal. His personality is no less phenomenal than his invention. In a short period of time he created a revolutionary product that influenced not only individual economic systems, but also the worldview of all mankind. 

As for further studies of the personality of the genius — of course they will continue. Any movement on Satoshi’s wallets or new documents will give them new impetus.

In any case, the mystery of the “father of cryptocurrency” supports the basic ideas of decentralized financial systems. And one of Satoshi’s quotes when he talked about bitcoin will be relevant here: “If you don’t believe me or accept it, I’m sorry, I don’t have time to convince you.” That’s how it turned out.

Thank you for your time. Invest safely and profitably!

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