HBO's new documentary 'Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery' claims that the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, is Peter Todd.
Todd, an early Bitcoin developer, denied the claims on X [formerly Twitter].
Touted as a “globe-trotting investigation," the documentary questions a host of people and dissects a bunch of clues to come to the conclusion that Todd is Nakamoto.
The documentary also claims that it solves "one of the internet’s greatest mysteries.”
Howeverm, people from the community do not seem to be on-board with the conclusion of the documentary.
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, for instance, exclaimed,
"The HBO documentary is disgusting. It’s baffling they reached this conclusion when all the Bitcoin experts disagree. It’s like making a flat-earth documentary without review from scientists and promoting it as ‘unveiling Earth’s secrets.'"
The documentary aired on HBO Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
Money Electric's Director Cullen Hoback presented a chat log message written by Todd in which he claimed to be the “world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins.”
Hoback underlined that this was an “admission” by Todd that he destroyed his ability to access the 1.1 million BTC owned by wallets controlled by Nakamoto.
He further made his case by claiming that Todd accidentally replied to a 2010 BitcoinTalk forum post made by Satoshi using his own profile.
People from the community feel that “this is clearly ridiculous” and is just an example of Peter Todd replying to Satoshi with a “snarky, pedantic, and accurate comment.”
Meanwhile, Pete Rizzo, a stalwart who conducts archival research on Bitcoin's history, exclaimed,
“Wow. Very dumb.”
Collectively, community members feel there is “zero reason” to agree Todd is Satoshi.
Meanwhile, Hoback believes,
“Todd’s game theory is next level. Just consider, in the run-up to [the documentary’s] release: he’s in the trailer, there’s a multi-million dollar betting pool, hundreds of thousands of tweets about the film and I didn’t see anyone suggest this possibility. He’s a fucking genius.”
