The HBO filmmaker believes he has found the creator of Bitcoin, whose identity is unknown

The identity of the Bitcoin inventor is a mystery, but the creator of a new HBO documentary believes he may have uncovered the person’s identity.

Cullen Hoback believes he may have discovered “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the pseudonym the Bitcoin inventor used online. According to the Washington Post, Bitcoin’s inventor could personally control a cryptocurrency supply worth tens of billions of dollars.

His documentary “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” premiered on HBO on Tuesday.

Hoback suggests that the real Nakamoto is not a programming expert or criminal mastermind, but rather Peter Todd, a developer from Canada who was in college at the time of the cryptocurrency’s invention.

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Cullen Hoback believes he may have discovered “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the pseudonym the Bitcoin inventor used online. (Getty Images)

The filmmaker doesn’t present incontrovertible evidence in his documentary linking Todd to the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, but he strings together intriguing coincidences and forum posts to prove that Todd is likely the person.

“We make a very strong case,” Hoback told The Washington Post. “And ultimately I want to leave it to the audience to draw their own conclusion.”

Todd denied inventing Bitcoin and said Hoback and others who wanted to uncover the identity of the Bitcoin founder should end their search.

“Not only is the question stupid, it’s dangerous,” Todd told The Washington Post. “Satoshi obviously didn’t want to be found for good reasons, and no one should help people trying to find Satoshi.”

According to the Washington Post, Nakamoto would be very wealthy if they still had access to the roughly 1 million Bitcoins they acquired in the early days of cryptocurrencies, which would be worth around $65 billion. Nakamoto could become even richer if the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, which Hoback says is one reason it is important to reveal Nakamoto’s identity.

“You are on your way to eventually becoming the richest person in the world,” Hoback said.

Todd told The Washington Post that Hoback’s claim that he was the Bitcoin inventor could make him a target for kidnappers or other criminals because of Nakamoto’s potential wealth. Todd said he would take a trip to escape possible danger before releasing the documentary.

“Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” premiered Tuesday on HBO. (Getty Images)

“Falsely claiming that ordinary people of ordinary wealth are extraordinarily wealthy exposes them to threats such as robbery and kidnapping,” Todd said.

The evidence Hoback cites as his “smoking gun” goes back to the early days of cryptocurrency, when Todd and Nakamoto had a discussion on a Bitcoin forum in 2010.

In the first post, Nakamoto describes a solution to a complex problem faced by Bitcoin. Todd, who had joined the forum a few days earlier and later claimed to have known little about Bitcoin until several years later, responded about 90 minutes later to correct the Bitcoin inventor.

“Of course, to be precise, the inputs and outputs cannot match *exactly* if the second transaction incurs a transaction fee,” Todd told Nakamoto.

Based on the posts, Hoback concluded that Todd had no intention of writing back to Nakamoto. Hoback says that Todd may have switched between his pseudonyms and mixed up his two accounts on the forum and intended his correction under Todd’s name to be made under Nakamoto’s name.

“Is he reacting or continuing a thought?” Hoback asks in the documentary.

A few days after the forum exchange, Nakamoto stopped posting online altogether, and Todd disappeared from the forum for several years.

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A neon sign indicates that Bitcoin is accepted at the venue of the Paralelni Polis project, an organization that combines art, social sciences and modern technology, in Prague, Czech Republic, on Friday, January 5, 2024. (Milan Jaros/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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Hoback also points out that while many of the other Nakamoto candidates are experienced programmers, the inventor’s programming skills have been described as amateurish, which would be consistent with Todd’s background at the time.

Nakamoto wrote more about Bitcoin during the summer months, suggesting that his real job followed an academic calendar.

The Bitcoin inventor also uses British spelling for words, which Hoback said would make sense given Todd’s Canadian origins.

Other journalists have already tried to solve the mystery surrounding the identity of the Bitcoin inventor, but many have either been exposed or failed to prevail.