Cryptographer Peter Todd has denied he is Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, as claimed in a HBO documentary, saying he thinks the director cares more about making a profit than finding out the real identity.
A new HBO documentary has identified Peter Todd, a Canadian developer, as the elusive creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Filmmaker Cullen Hoback, known for his award-winning work, claims to have unearthed compelling evidence pointing to Todd’s involvement in the creation of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.
Hoback’s documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, has interviews with several prominent figures in the cryptocurrency community and trawls through old internet posts to support the claim. In one scene, Hoback confronts Todd with his findings, to which Todd seemingly confesses, “Well, yeah, I’m Satoshi Nakamoto.”
However, the documentary acknowledges that this statement should not be interpreted as a definitive confirmation, as Todd has previously referred to himself as Satoshi as a gesture of solidarity with the creator’s desire for privacy. This is a common refrain amongst the crypto community online: “I am Satoshi Nakamoto,” or “We are all Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Todd later say to Hoback, “You come up with some crazy theories. It’s ludicrous, but it’s the kind of theory that someone who spends his time as a documentary journalist would come up with.”
Todd, a prominent figure in the Bitcoin community, has been a core developer and was known to have communicated with the pseudonymous Nakamoto in the platform’s early days. Despite his standing, he has rarely been considered a prime suspect in the hunt for Satoshi’s true identity.
Predictions ahead of the documentary’s broadcast pointed to several individuals including Adam Back, a British cryptographer whose work was cited in the original 2009 Bitcoin whitepaper. Following the airing of the documentary, Hoback posted on X (formerly Twitter): “The Father: Adam Back, The Son: Peter Todd, The Holy Ghost: Greg Maxwell.”
Hoback followed up to responses saying Todd would have been too young to have developed such technology when the Bitcoin whitepaper was released in 2009, replying to an X user that “Peter was 23 at the time … Most cryptographers have their major breakthroughs when they’re younger. His dad is an economist,” adding, “Did you watch?”
In the documentary itself, Hoback points to an internet forum post from 2010 as evidence that Todd is the person behind Nakamoto. In this post, Nakamoto explains Bitcoin transactions and Todd responds to the comment, elaborating on the point. Hoback says it is proof that Todd accidentally logged on under his own name to continue the post.
Todd’s response was to repost an X post saying, “This is clearly ridiculous! It is just an example of @peterktodd replying to Satoshi with a snarky, pedantic and accurate comment … This is the kind of comment Peter could make today. There is zero reason to believe this was Satoshi.”
He later flatly denied being Nakamoto, posting, “I’m not Satoshi,” in response to an X user posting, “If Peter Todd wasn’t Satoshi then he can just publicly deny it on Twitter instead of making half sarcastic comments about it.”
This photo illustration shows a physical representation of a Bitcoin in Hong Kong on April 16, 2024. Following the airing of a HBO documentary claiming Canadian technologist Peter Todd is Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, Todd took to X to deny this.
DALE DE LA REY / AFP/Getty Images
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 actually wanted to find Satoshi, he would have presented his theories to Adam Back and I to see if there wasn’t some trivial flaw in them 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 flaws in his theory,” added Todd.
Adam Back, who is well-known in the cryptocurrency and cryptography communities, and was also interviewed for the documentary, also took to X to deny he is Nakamoto or part of a founding collective.
“In 2013 I went on #bitcoin-wizards IRC (an internet chat protocol popular in the early days of the internet) and asked lots of questions to catch-up with bitcoin details. … here are logs of that IRC channel, so developers who were in the channel are confident it’s not me.”
He clarified, “Not me,” in response to a direct question asking if 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 saying goes loose lips sink ships. Gossiping about secrets while fun is a recipe for leaks,” while later reflecting that “at this point it wouldn’t matter much IMO. If Satoshi came back and proposed silly changes, people would reject them. Yes like with Elon you’d get to see founder eccentricity or tabloid puff pieces about what pizza topping he likes. But that’d be just noise.”
Gregory Maxwell, co-founder of blockchain Blockstream and an early Bitcoin advocate, was also namechecked by Holback who called him “The Holy Ghost” to Back’s “Father” and Todd’s “Son.” Maxwell posted on a Y Combinator forum that Holback’s logic leading him to Todd was faulty.
“Also, at the time petertodd’s account was named ‘retep’ and didn’t have any immediately obvious connection to his identity. If there had been a slipup he could have just abandoned the account and certainly not later had it renamed to his legal name!” said Maxwell.
