In the 100-minute video, Cullen Hobak, the producers of the highly anticipated documentary, presents various pieces of evidence suggesting Todd, an early cryptocurrency figure, was Bitcoin's alias.
Todd has contributed to bitcoin for years as a Bitcoin Core Developer. He grew interested in encryption and blockchain technology in his teens.
He began using Bitcoin in the late 2000s, at 23 years old, when the 2008 Bitcoin white paper was published.
Todd said he started contacting with early Bitcoin pioneers including Hal Finney and Hashcash founder Adam Back at 15 in a 2019 What Bitcoin Did podcast. These early contacts shaped his Bitcoin and cryptography efforts.
Todd told crypto.news in 2018 that he was an analog electronics designer and geophysical entrepreneur before switching to Bitcoin.
In July 2014, he joined Coinkite as a Bitcoin Core Developer and then became chief scientist at Mastercoin and Dark Wallet.
Hobak used circumstantial evidence to name Todd, including his cryptic online posts, such as one where he called himself “the world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins” — which are interpreted as veiled admissions that he may have destroyed Nakamoto's estimated 1.1 million BTC.
The documentary suggested Todd accidentally posted from Satoshi's BitcoinTalk account in 2010.
Todd was also a leading proponent of Replace-by-Fee (RBF), a contentious concept that would enable prior transactions to be replaced by new ones with greater fees. The documentary suggested that only Nakamoto, who knew Bitcoin's initial programming, could have made this technical advice.
Cryptocommunities quickly disproved HBO's assertions. Web3 researcher Pix identified multiple documentary flaws.
Peter Todd was still completing a fine arts degree in 2008 and wasn't active in cryptography, so Pix didn't think he required a pseudonym like Satoshi Nakamoto.
HBO claimed Todd mistakenly disclosed himself as Satoshi by not switching accounts in a 2010 BitcoinTalk post. Pix denied this. Pix believed a 13-hour follow-up post was a remark rather than a forgotten account changeover.