Good day everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. In this post I will be looking at the recent revelation from the HBO documentary that Peter Todd is meant to be Satoshi, and why that is not correct.
Peter Todd is NOT Satoshi
The recent documentary 'Money Electric' claimed that Peter Todd was the anonymous creator of Bitcoin known as Satoshi Nakamoto. As part of the documentary Cullen Hoback investigates who the creator of Bitcoin could be, and decides that it is a Canadian crypto expert and software developer, Peter Todd. Hoback explored Todd’s early connections with prominent figures like Adam Back, one of the few people Nakamoto cited in the original Bitcoin white paper and throughout the documentary he builds his case as to why it must be Todd.
Hoback makes use of circumstantial evidence, including a 2010 Bitcoin forum post where Todd seemingly corrected Satoshi and speculates that Todd accidentally posted from his personal account while clarifying an earlier statement he made as Satoshi Nakamoto. Todd was confronted by Hoback about being Satoshi, but he denied it and called the idea "ludicrous." It was noted by Hoback that he found Todd to be visibly nervous and that Adam Back remained silent throughout the entire confrontation.
Peter Todd
The documentary was much anticipated and in revealing Todd as the supposed Bitcoin creator, it has drawn plenty of speculation along with criticism. Todd was always considered a divisive figure in the Bitcoin community as he was well known for criticizing some of Nakamoto’s ideas. However his selection as the choice of being Satoshi Nakamoto following the 15-year search for the elusive Bitcoin inventor, it is safe to say that Hoback’s “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” underwhelmed.
The evidence put forward by Hoback to support his claims about Todd stunned many people who have spent years analysing Satoshi’s background. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Bitcoin outfit Casa, posted on X:
“wherever Satoshi may be, I like to think they’re having a laugh at this latest round of foolishness.”
Another prominent figure in the Web3 space and the CEO of JAN3, a company that promotes the adoption of Bitcoin by nation-states, , Samson Mow wrote on X:
“He [Satoshi] cannot be found, and any claims to the contrary are all constructed around circumstantial evidence – or fabricated in cases like Faketoshi [Craight Wright].”
The backbone for Hoback’s theory was based upon a comment made by Todd in response to a Nakamoto post in the BitcoinTalk forum back in December 2010. Satoshi has not been active on the forum since December 13, 2010, and he is also the founder of the forum. In the post Todd questioned the decision of capping Bitcoin at 21 million coins. It is a position that few have questioned within the community and many praised as part of Nakamoto’s original concept. Hoback decided this behaviour was clear supporting evidence for his theory that Peter Todd is the real Satoshi Nakamoto. He believes that Todd forgot to switch back profiles when he was posting as Satoshi. Another hint in Hoback's investigation was a 2015post where Todd wrote:
“I think Bitcoin is a great example of how sometimes world-changing ideas are actually pretty simple.”
Hoback believes this is another insight into Todd's possible role in Bitcoin’s creation. Back in Bitcoin's early days Todd was a fine arts student at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. Hoback noted the similarities in the times that Todd and Satoshi would post to the forum. He concluded that it was “like they were on an academic calendar.” More evidence that Hoback believes backs up his claim was that Todd once claimed to be the “world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your bitcoins…I’ve done one such sacrifice and I did it by hand.” Hoback finds this to be an an admission by Todd that he has lost the ability to access the 1.1 million Bitcoin held in Satoshi's wallet. Its value in todays market is over $66 billion and if accessed it could cause major market volatility and instability in Bitcoin.
Much of what Hoback brought forward as part of his evidence is circumstantial, and Todd continues to deny the claim that he is Nakamoto. Hoback hopes Money Electric will spark further investigations, encouraging the crypto community to consider his evidence and dig deeper into the identity of the mysterious Bitcoin creator but his conclusion on Todd being the creator is really no more than clutching at straws.
There are several reasons why Todd is most likely not Satoshi. The last known email contact from Satoshi was sent in April 2011, when he said, “I’m moving on to other things.” Many have shared their opinion on this topic, and among them is renowned British Bitcoin Core developer and cryptographer Amir Taaki. He noted that Satoshi Nakamoto wrote code, the program language used by computers to perform tasks, which “was not usual.”
Amir Taaki
Taaki wrote on X that Satoshi had many quirks and he described his code as “highly idiosyncratic and personal, including the style itself.” He also noted that between 2008 and 2010 Satoshi wrote code in a way that did not change, Taaki noted that the best way to identify Satoshi is by comparing his code with others. So far nobody has done this, but Satoshi wrote his code in a computer language known as C++. Initially Taaki did not believe that Satoshi was a programmer due to how weird and unusual his code was. According to Taaki he did not follow normal code practices that were modern at that time. Taaki noted:
“He made big use of locks when it was out of fashion. He used Hungarian notation which was no longer used. He made spaghetti function recursion and never used objects to encapsulate processes. He also targeted Windows.”
From this Taaki believes that Satoshi Nakamoto was likely an older person, “possibly not a software developer but from a close domain like engineering or physics.” When considering Peter Todd, he is currently 39 years old but was in his early 20s when Satoshi released the Bitcoin white paper in 2008. It is also unlikely that Todd would have written a complex document such as the Bitcoin white paper and turned it into reality when he had just left high school. Mow, the JAN3 CEO, agreed with Taaki's position regarding Satoshi’s unique coding prowess in a post on X:
“Peter Todd is not Satoshi despite what Cullen [Hoback] may believe. Peter may have said some dumb things to implicate himself, but he isn’t even a viable candidate because he’s not that strong of a coder. And he is simply too contrarian to resist arguing with people online for years.”
Another strong indication as to why Todd is not Satoshi is that Todd himself was shocked by Hoback’s conclusions. Within the documentary the Bitcoin developer denied he was Satoshi, describing the claim as “ludicrous.” Todd states within the documentary:
“I’ll warn you, this is going to be very funny when you put this into the documentary, and a bunch of Bitcoiners watch it. I suspect a lot of them will be very happy if you go this route because it’s gonna be yet another example of journalists really missing the point.”
Todd sent an email to COinDesk ahead of the HBO film’s release where he denied being the creator of Bitcoin. Within the email he apparently stated:
“Of course, I’m not Satoshi. It’s ironic that a director who is also known for a documentary on QAnon has resorted to QAnon style coincidence-based conspiracy thinking here too.”
Since the HBO documentary release Todd has repeatedly denied being the Bitcoin creator, and he even responded when Politico Europe finance editor Izabella Kamiska suggested on social media that Todd takes a polygraph test to prove he was not Satoshi, stating:
“Polygraph tests are pseudoscience bullshit. But sure, I’ll do one. Pay all my travel expenses (business class for this) and a $10k fee for my time, payable in advance.”
So far Todd has been quite robust in his denial of being Satoshi Nakamoto, and it aligns with the fact Todd has been transparent regarding his identity comparted to the secretive nature of Nakamoto. It seems far-fetched to say the least that Satoshi, who was averse to publicity, would take part in a film that exposes the creator of Bitcoin. Todd has helped to improve Bitcoin and make important contribution, such as in the areas of security and scalability, but his work focuses more on improving an existing system rather than building one from the bottom up.
Satoshi meanwhile was responsible for building the technology behind Bitcoin and spelling out its vision through foundational ideas about decentralized currency and trustless transactions. An example of this is the first Bitcoin block mined by Satoshi, which included the message “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. This inscription is linked to the state of the financial industry in 2009, a crisis that could have inspired the creation of Bitcoin. This genesis block of Bitcoin also illustrates Satoshi’s libertarian ideals of creating a stateless currency controlled by no one. While Todd share some of these philosophical ideals, his main approach has always leaned towards the security side of things.
Another famed incident involving Todd was when emails between himself and an unknown figure named John Dillon were leaked. Within these emails they discussed a technical upgrade to Bitcoin. This caused outrage in the Bitcoin community as it was later discovered that Dillon was in fact a U.S. government spy paying Todd as part of a plot to infiltrate Bitcoin. Within his documentary Hoback believes that Todd and Dillion were the same person, and that Todd arranged the entire email exchange to push for the Bitcoin upgrade he wanted. This is another suspicious accusation which once again suggests that Todd makes use of multiple characters without backing it up. Todd has denied knowing Dillion.
Todd and Dillion Scandal
Something worth considering is also the fact Todd only became a key figure in the Bitcoin community long after the cryptocurrency had already started to gain traction. It was Hal Finney who was the first person to respond to Satoshi’s post about Bitcoin on the mailing list and the first to receive a Bitcoin transaction. Todd only made his first real contribution to the blockchain in 2014.
Many analysts believe that if Todd were to be Satoshi he would have needed to be active during Bitcoin’s very early days. Another piece of evidence is the study done in 2014 by the Aston University Centre for Forensic Linguistics. They looked at the writing style of 13 Nakamoto candidates and controversially named cypherpunk Nick Szabo the author of the Bitcoin white paper.
While Todd may have some similarities with the creator of Bitcoin, I think it is safe to say he is not the creator. There is not enough proof to definitively conclude that the Canadian is the Bitcoin inventor, instead he is just one of many who found his calling from the work of Satoshi Nakamoto. As Blockstream CEO and legendary computer scientist, Adam Back said: “We will never know who Satoshi is”.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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