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A new HBO documentary has made waves by claiming it uncovered the identity of the mysterious figure responsible for bringing Bitcoin into the world, but Peter Todd—the man who supposedly invented the cryptocurrency—insists the film got it wrong while ripping into the creator for putting him in danger.
It’s been more than 15 years since someone using the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” posted the white paper that outlined the foundation for what would eventually become Bitcoin, the blockchain-based cryptocurrency that was mined for the first time at the start of 2009.
That new form of payment was worth a fraction of a penny based on the transactions that started to unfold later that year, but as you’re probably aware by this point, it slowly but surely began to gain steam before skyrocketing in value thanks to the massive boom (and subsequent bust) that transpired toward the end of 2017.
As things currently stand, a single Bitcoin is trading for around $63,000, and it’s widely believed whoever is hiding behind the Satoshi moniker is one of the richest people on the planet due to a portfolio that may contain more than a million of them (around 5% of the planned finite supply) that’s subsequently valued as tens of billions of dollars.
Plenty of people have understandably attempted to figure out who Satoshi really is (the most high-profile case involves an Australian man named Craig Wright, who attempted to prove he was behind the account in a trial where a judge definitively ruled he was not), but they’ve been able to keep their true identity under wraps.
However, things took an interesting turn prior to the release of the HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery when director Cullen Hoback (who previously helmed a project tracking down the folks believed to be orchestrating the QAnon conspiracy) asserted he’d managed to get to the bottom of the matter.
The film came out this week and points the finger at Peter Todd, a 39-year-old Canadian software engineer already known for his contributions to the crypto community.
Hoback relies on a slew of circumstantial evidence (like the use of British spellings common in Canada and a posting schedule that coincided with his summer breaks as a college student) and primarily relies on a post Todd made in response to one from Satoshi, which he purports was supposed to be a continuation sent from the Nakamoto account he may have forgotten to log out of.
However, Todd firmly pushed back against that theory during an email interview with The Washington Post where he denied he was Satoshi and criticized Hoback for his “dangerous” attempt to solve the mystery, saying, “Falsely claiming that ordinary people of ordinary wealth are extraordinarily rich exposes them to threats like robbery and kidnapping.”
He added he made the decision to leave his home and go on a trip coinciding with the release of the documentary to avoid befalling that fate.
Hoback seems fairly unfazed by the pushback, as he told the outlet he thinks the evidence he collected speaks for itself even though it may not be definitive.