HBO documentary ignites controversy with ‘disgusting’ Satoshi Nakamoto declare

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 id to boost Bitcoin’s credibility.

In response to Hobak, this pseudonym appeared that Bitcoin was created by a longtime cryptographer reasonably 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 put up, the place Todd described himself as “the world’s main skilled on the way to 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 chance posted from Satoshi’s account on the BitcoinTalk discussion board in 2010.

Moreover, Todd’s advocacy for the controversial Exchange-by-Price (RBF) proposal is highlighted. The documentary means that solely somebody with intimate information of Bitcoin’s unique code—like Nakamoto—might have launched such a technical characteristic.

Polymarket bettors had been principally unsuitable.

HBO’s principle prompted 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 below 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 id 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 area. 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 every one Nakamoto theories undergo from affirmation bias.

Pledditor defined that theorists typically give attention to just a few notable figures, retroactively discovering “coincidences” to help their claims. In response to them, this technique is flawed and leads to stalking and unethical doxxing. He added:

They added:

“The chance that Satoshi was any certainly one of these semi-public figures that commonly get accused of being Satoshi is fairly slim. That’s why in the event you don’t have concrete proof, it’s best to most likely maintain your Satoshi Nakamoto id theories to your self. All it does is put a $60 billion greenback bounty on the again of what’s (almost definitely) the unsuitable 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 consultants. He likened it to selling a flat-earth principle with out scientific evaluate.

BitMEX Analysis additionally dismissed the idea that Todd is Satoshi primarily based on the 2010 BitcoinTalk put up, calling the suggestion “ridiculous.” The agency said that Todd’s put up was merely a sarcastic reply to Satoshi, including:

“There may be zero cause to imagine 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 just isn’t satoshi. anybody who has critically labored within the bitcoin trade is aware of this.”

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