“I’ve moved on to other things.” This was announced by a shadowy figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, in a cryptic email in April 2011 before disappearing from the face of the Earth and unleashing what has been called “the biggest mystery of the Internet age.”
Because Nakamoto was the pseudonym of the creator of Bitcoin, the multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency that may yet revolutionize the way the world does business and become its global currency.
Nakamoto’s achievement gives him more than just bragging rights, as he owns around one million Bitcoin, currently worth £48 billion, and if its value continues to appreciate, it could make him the world’s first billionaire.
Not surprisingly, then, there has been intense interest in who it might be.
For years, the Internet has been gripped by what amounts to a huge nerd hunt that, at one time or another, has targeted a Japanese mathematician, a Finnish sociologist, an Irish student, and a suburban Australian computer scientist as Nakamoto. of Surrey.
If Bitcoin’s creator is British, many agree that the most obvious candidate is Adam Back, a veteran cryptographer with a PhD in computer science from the University of Exeter.
Some have even speculated that it could be Elon Musk, science fiction novelist Neal Stephenson or the US National Security Agency, arguing that the latter could have created Bitcoin as a trap for criminals.
Now, a television documentary claims that none of these fit the bill and that the real Nakamoto has been hiding in plain sight for years: Canadian Peter Todd, a Bitcoin developer and cryptography expert.
Todd, 39, from Toronto, is reportedly a self-taught tech prodigy who claims he learned to write computer code before he could read. He also has some extreme political views (he claims that Israel should “attack” Iran) and has a reputation in the cryptocurrency world for being endlessly contrarian, if not arrogant.
“He always wants to make sure he can prove that he’s the smartest guy in the room,” explains one program associate.
Unfortunately for the HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, Todd denies being Nakamoto. When filmmaker Cullen Hoback accuses him of this on camera, he laughs at the idea as “ridiculous.”
However, he also told Hoback that if he were Nakamoto he would not want to be identified as the inventor of Bitcoin, as it would expose him to kidnappers and other criminals. Todd said he would have destroyed any evidence that pointed to his path.
Hoback, who spent three years flying around the world talking to early Bitcoin contributors, insists Todd didn’t cover his tracks properly.
He brings up a number of clues (none of them conclusive proof but, on the whole, certainly curious) that could identify Todd. Most significant may be a 2010 online exchange on a Bitcoin forum in which Todd responded to a Nakamoto post in a way that seemed to continue his line of thinking.
Hoback believes that Todd had accidentally posted from the wrong account and revealed that he was Nakamoto.
Three days later, both accounts went silent.
The documentary reveals that in an old CV, Todd claimed to be proficient in a programming language used to create the original Bitcoin code, only to later deny that he knew it. Todd also allegedly created a fake person’s online account to add a feature to Bitcoin without being identified as the manipulator.
Hoback checks Nakamoto’s posts and discovers that he uses British English (spellings like ‘favour’, ‘neighbour’, ‘grey’ and ‘cheques’, or words and phrases like ‘bloody hard’ or ‘flat’, instead of apartment) . what Canadians usually do.
Although Todd was 22 years old and studying fine arts when Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin, the documentary reveals that most of those publications were published online during the summers, when, of course, a student would have much more free time.
A television documentary claims that the real Nakamoto has been hiding in plain sight for years: Canadian Peter Todd, 39, a Bitcoin developer and crypto expert.
Todd posted on social media denying claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto.
“What if the real reason for using (the fake name) Satoshi, for (the sake of) anonymity, was so that people could take Bitcoin seriously” and believe that it was created by a famous cryptographer and “not by a child who is still in school”? says Hoback.
By denying that he is the creator of Bitcoin, Todd at least admitted that the real Nakamoto would say that. However, in the days since the show launched on HBO, many others in the cryptocurrency world have questioned its conclusion, insisting that, once again, Nakamoto’s detectives have unmasked the wrong person.
Every other Nakamoto wannabe who has ever been “revealed” has suffered a similar fate. But if it’s not Todd, who could it be?
Some still believe Nakamoto is British, and not just because of the numerous British English spellings and words he used online before worrying about covering his tracks. Nakamoto’s comments tended to appear online after normal business hours ended in the United Kingdom (which would have been the middle of the workday in North America).
Most tellingly, some believed, Nakamoto read a British newspaper: When he created the first 50 Bitcoins, known as the “genesis block,” he permanently embedded a short line of text into the data that read: “The Times 03/Jan /2009 “The Chancellor on the verge of the second bailout for the banks.”
This was a reference to a headline in a Times newspaper article that said the UK government had failed to stimulate the economy and many observers considered Nakamoto’s subliminal message to be that it was time to try something new, like Bitcoin.
And if the creator of Bitcoin is British, then – many agree – the most obvious candidate is Adam Back, a veteran cryptographer with a PhD in computer science from the University of Exeter.
Like Todd, he was a computer prodigy from an early age and taught himself to code BASIC on a Sinclair ZX81, one of the first home computers. He then graduated to reverse engineering video games, dismantling the programming to see how they work.
He is one of the original cypherpunks, a group of activists who advocated for the use of robust, privacy-enhancing technologies (such as supposedly untraceable cryptocurrencies) to achieve political and social change.
Back, 54 and now living in Malta, invented Hashcash, a precursor to Bitcoin, in 1997, and played a role in the initial development of Bitcoin. He was one of the first people known to have communicated with Nakamoto Nakamoto, although these email exchanges could have been falsified to suggest that they were different people.
He remains an enthusiastic Bitcoin apostle and runs a company called Blockstream that helps people “mine” the currency, an energy-intensive process in which computers have to solve extremely complicated mathematical problems.
Although he denies being Nakamoto or even knowing who he is, some have never been convinced and an online video identifying Back as Nakamoto has been viewed almost 1.5 million times since its release in 2020.
It claims that the businessman filed countless patents for digital inventions each year until 2005, when he suddenly stopped doing so, “disappearing” until 2010, a year after Bitcoin was launched.
The video also noted that both Nakamoto and Back leave double spaces after writing each sentence and that he had a history of leaving political messages in computer code, as well as the reference to the newspaper headline in Bitcoin code. Also highlighted was the fact that Back moved to Malta, famous for its low tax situation, in 2009, the year of Bitcoin’s launch.
And it turns out that Back was Peter Todd’s mentor, helping the Canadian understand cryptography, hiding and encoding the core information of cryptocurrencies.
Back has historically avoided media attention but was surprisingly happy to feature prominently in the HBO documentary.
It’s hard to watch Back, looking somewhat sly and often laughing nervously on the show, and not conclude that he knows a lot more than he lets on about the mystery.
In fact, filmmaker Hoback tells him that he initially believed Back and not Todd was Nakamoto. Back seems relieved, if not amused, when Hoback, who might have felt the need to put a new name in the frame, finally tells the two friends which one of them he suspects.
The Englishman certainly seems to know who Nakamoto is not, publicly calling Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist and businessman living in Surrey, a liar for claiming to be Nakamoto. Wright sued him for defamation, but dropped the suit in 2020 and had to pay Back’s legal costs.
In March this year, a High Court judge in London backed Back’s argument by ruling that Wright is not Nakamoto, referring him to prosecutors for alleged perjury.
We may never know the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and besides, the Bitcoin bubble may still implode and its value collapse, and then who would want to admit to being the real Nakamoto?
