Cryptographer Peter Todd denied being so. Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, as claimed HBO documentary, saying he thinks the director cares more about making a profit than discovering the true identity.
A new HBO documentary has identified Peter Todd, a Canadian developer, as Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Filmmaker Cullen Hoback, known for his award-winning work, claims to have uncovered compelling evidence of Todd’s involvement in the creation of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.
Hoback’s documentary, Money Electric: the mystery of Bitcoinhas interviews with several figures in the cryptocurrency community and scours old internet posts to back up his claims. In one scene, Hoback confronts Todd with his findings, to which Todd appears to confess, “Well, yes, my name is Satoshi Nakamoto.”
However, the documentary acknowledges that this statement should not be interpreted as definitive confirmation, since Todd has previously called himself Satoshi in solidarity with the creator’s desire for privacy. This is a common refrain within the online crypto community: “I am Satoshi Nakamoto” or “We are all Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Todd would later tell Hoback, “You’re coming up with crazy theories. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the kind of theory someone who spends their time being a documentary journalist would come up with.
Todd, a prominent figure in the Bitcoin community, was one of the core developers and was known to have communicated under the pseudonym Nakamoto in the early days of the platform. Despite his position, he was rarely considered the prime suspect in the search for Satoshi’s true identity.
Predictions before the documentary airs pointed out several people, including Adam Back, a British cryptographer whose work was cited in the original 2009 Bitcoin white paper. Following the documentary’s release, Hoback posted on X (formerly Twitter): “The Father: Adam Back, The Son: Peter Todd, The Holy Spirit: Greg Maxwell.”
Hoback followed up on responses saying that Todd would have been too young to have developed such technology when the Bitcoin whitepaper was published in 2009, responding to user cryptographers make their major breakthroughs when they “I’m younger. His father is an economist,” adding, “Have you looked?”
In the documentary itself, Hoback cites an internet forum post from 2010 as proof that Todd is the person behind Nakamoto. In this article, Nakamoto explains Bitcoin transactions and Todd responds to the comment by expanding on this point. Hoback says this is proof that Todd accidentally logged in under his own name to continue the message.
Todd’s response was to repost a message that Peter could do today There is no reason to believe it was Satoshi.”
He then flatly denied being Nakamoto, posting “I’m not Satoshi”, in response to an X user, “If Peter Todd wasn’t Satoshi then he can just publicly deny it on Twitter instead of making half-sarcastic comments about it.
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Todd went on to claim that Hoback simply wanted to make a popular documentary and didn’t really care about finding out who was behind the creation of Bitcoin: “If @CullenHoback had really wanted to find Satoshi, he would have presented his theories to Adam. Back and me to see if there wasn’t an insignificant defect like this.”
“But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to make a profitable documentary. So he never asked us if there were any flaws in his theory,” Todd added.
Adam Back, who is well known in the cryptocurrency and crypto communities, and was also interviewed for the documentary, also took to X to deny that he was Nakamoto or part of a founding collective.
“In 2013 I went to the IRC #bitcoin-wizards (an internet chat protocol popular in the early days of the internet) and asked a lot of questions to follow the details of bitcoin. … here are the logs from this IRC channel, so the developers who were present on the channel are convinced that it’s not me.
He clarified, “Not me,” in response to a direct question whether he was Nakamoto, and later added, “No one knows who Satoshi is…and that’s a good thing.”
Back said, “I think only he knows who he is. As the saying goes, loose lips sink ships. Chatting about secrets while having fun is a recipe for leaks”, while later reflecting that “at this point it wouldn’t matter much, in my opinion. If Satoshi came back and proposed stupid changes, people would reject them. Yes, like with Elon, you would see the eccentricity of the founder or tabloid articles about the pizza topping he likes But that would just be noise.
Gregory Maxwell, co-founder of the Blockstream blockchain and an early advocate of Bitcoin, was also quoted by Holback as “The Holy Spirit” in reference to Back’s “Father” and “Son.” by Todd. Maxwell posted on a Y Combinator forum that Holback’s logic leading him to Todd was flawed.
“Also, at the time, Petertodd’s account was called ‘retep’ and had no immediately obvious connection to his identity. If there had been a mistake, he could have simply abandoned the account and certainly not later rename it under its legal name!” Maxwell said.