A new HBO documentary claims to have uncovered the identity of the creator of the Bitcoin protocol, who operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, according to an October 3 Politico article.
The real identity of Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, has been one of the most hotly debated topics in crypto for years because wallets associated with Bitcoin’s creator hold around 1.1 million BTC tokens.
That would give Satoshi Nakamoto a net worth of around $72.6 billion, per the current price of $61,000 per token.
Per the article, the documentary will air on HBO next Wednesday at 2 am CET.
Politico claims that if the documentary’s findings are widely accepted, this could have major ramifications across global financial markets and even in the US presidential election, given Republican President Donald Trump’s public backing of Bitcoin.
Who Will New HBO Documentary Claim Created Bitcoin?
Of course, no one can be sure who HBO’s new documentary will claim is Satoshi Nakamoto until it is released in just under one week.
But that hasn’t stopped social media users from speculating.
A few users, including @ali_charts, said it might be Craig Wright’s latest attempt to convince the world that he is the creator.
The disgraced Australian computer scientist recently suffered a devastating defeat in a UK court, which ruled he isn’t the creator of Bitcoin. Thus, his attempts to sue anyone and everyone who had doubted his claims were hobbled.
@tonychilla_eth claimed in a post on X that the HBO documentary will claim “Adam Back” is Satoshi. His post includes HBO’s Instagram trailer of the documentary.
Adam Back features in the trailer and is one of the Cypherpunk developers interviewed by HBO as part of their investigation.
The Cypherpunks were a group of libertarian technologists and hackers who worked on enhancing internet freedom and privacy.
Prominent academics within this community, like Back, had spent years developing technology that would eventually facilitate the creation of Bitcoin.
However, X user Alex Thorn said in a post that he is “hearing that the forthcoming… documentary identifies Len Sassaman as Satoshi Nakamoto”.
He then links to a compelling blog written by another X user called Evan Worlds back in 2021 that made this argument.
Sassaman passed in 2011 after committing suicide, around the same time that Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared.
As Worlds’ blog post pointed out, there are also dozens of other coincidences and clues suggesting that Satoshi could be Sassaman.
Thorn claimed this would be neutral to positive for Bitcoin – If Satoshi is no longer alive, those 1.1 million BTC tokens would likely be forever lost.
This would also remove the risk that Bitcoin’s creator will return to attempt to exert influence over the protocol at some point in the future.
Politically Motivated?
One X user lambasts the upcoming HBO documentary revealing Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity as a left-wing attempt to portray Bitcoin as evil.
Ayyan Rahman cites the fact that the Politico article mentions Trump and Elon Musk, as well as politics and the fact that criminals have used Bitcoin as a means of anonymously moving funds.
Rahman claims that those who paid for the documentary are the people who went after Tornado Cash or Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht.
It’s certainly the case that people of a left-leaning persuasion who tend to favor more government control over people’s lives and the economy may be distrustful or hostile towards a protocol like Bitcoin because it isn’t something that they can control.
It’s unclear whether the documentary itself will have an explicitly anti-crypto spin.
That would seem like an odd move, as the majority of the documentary’s watchers will probably be ardent supporters of Bitcoin and other major cryptos.
Readers will have to wait just under one more week to finally enjoy the Satoshi Nakamoto reveal.
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