Representatives of the cryptocurrency community before the release of the film believed that Len Sassaman would be recognised as the creator of Bitcoin in “Money Electric”. We are talking about a crypto fan who is also one of the earliest users of cryptocurrency.

Plus, he committed suicide around the same period when Satoshi disappeared from the network, which was one of the reasons to consider Sassaman for the role.

Developer and privacy aficionado Len Sassaman

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto really?

One of the key claims of the film is that Todd used anonymity to increase Bitcoin’s credibility, although the personal chronology of the life of the “suspect for the role of Satoshi” contradicts many of the documentary’s theses.

Recall, the BTC network was launched on 3 January 2009, when Todd was still studying fine art at university. Although he was already interested in cryptography, the developer publicly stated that he only began interacting with the first cryptocurrency in 2014.

Bitcoin developer and user Peter Todd

There is a passage in the film in which Todd sarcastically claims to be the very same Satoshi.

Oh no, I am Satoshi. I am Satoshi Nakamoto.

However, this is just a quote, unsupported by actual evidence from Todd himself. Craig Wright, for example, has been doing the same thing for several years, or the so-called “Feiktoshi”. We are talking about a fraudster who calls himself a Bitcoin developer and can’t prove it with any facts.

Although in reality it is very easy to prove it and dispel doubts. Still, the real Satoshi owns a private key, which can be used to sign any message and thus confirm the ownership of the combination.

Dorian Nakamoto, who was previously believed to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto

According to Cointelegraph’s sources, the documentary also references a 2010 post on the BitcoinTalk forum. In it, Todd allegedly accidentally posted from his own account instead of Satoshi’s, continuing his thought in the original thread and thus revealing himself.

Todd’s post on Bitcointalk in which he allegedly exposed Satoshi Nakamoto as himself

Peter himself comments as follows.

Satoshi’s last post was a week after I registered on BitcoinTalk, but then I disappeared.

Although Todd presents all this as a coincidence, the film makers presented the publication as a convincing proof. According to representatives of the cryptocurrency community, such a thing is at least unethical towards Todd himself.

Dorian Nakamoto, who was once considered the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

Still, a person far from the crypto-industry may perceive such a coincidence as a suspicious trifle, which in turn exposes Peter to unnecessary attention and danger. The reason is that Satoshi Nakamoto remained the main miner on the network during the early months of Bitcoin’s existence. Accordingly, he received remuneration for his work, which then amounted to 50 bitcoins per block.

It is believed that the creator of the first cryptocurrency accumulated approximately 1.1 million BTC, which translates into 67 billion dollars. Judging by the events of recent years, the developer has no plans to touch this amount, which means it can essentially be considered lost, as the crypto is unlikely to impact the market.

Todd shares this viewpoint.

This is another example of journalists missing the point, and in a very amusing way at that. The goal is to make Bitcoin the world’s currency, and people like you who are distracted by nonsense have the potential to be useful in that endeavour.

The first block in the Bitcoin network, also known as the Genesis Block

The documentary also claims that Todd’s introduction of Replace-by-Fee (RBF) in 2014 was pre-planned and related to Nakamoto Bitcoin’s initial vision for the development of the BTC network.

However, this is not true, as RBF was not part of the original version of the cryptocurrency, experts say. Therefore, such an argument also fails to justify itself.

Replace-by-Fee (RBF) is a mechanism in the Bitcoin network that allows users to replace an unconfirmed transaction with a new transfer with a higher fee to increase its chances of being included in the blockchain. This approach is used when the original transaction is not confirmed for a long period of time because the fee is too low or there is a general increase in activity on the blockchain.

Again, this is not enough to make Todd a developer under the alias Satoshi. In fact, confirming possession of Nakamoto’s private key is the only sure way to establish the true identity of Bitcoin’s creator.

However, this is unlikely to happen. Still, if the developer wanted to reveal himself, he would have done so long ago. And since his wallet and forum accounts have remained untouched for more than a decade, it’s hardly worth counting on such a scenario.


In general, cryptocurrency users considered a lot of flaws in the new documentary from HBO and did not believe it. In addition, Peter Todd himself explicitly stated that he did not belong to the creation of Bitcoin and could not do it. So the picture once again reminded that the real creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, took proper care to protect his identity.


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