Canadian Crypto Expert Denies He Is Satoshi Nakamoto

Tom Jowitt,
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bitcoin crypto

After HBO documentary names Canadian crypto expert Peter Todd as Bitcoin inventor – but he denies he is Satoshi Nakamoto

The ongoing mystery over the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, continues with a new claim in a television documentary.

A HBO broadcast on Tuesday entitled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery,” claims that Canadian crypto expert Peter Todd, who was involved in early discussions around the development of Bitcoin, was its pseudonymous creator, namely Satoshi Nakamoto.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the person (or persons) who developed Bitcoin, but his true identity has remained a mystery for over 15 years.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Nakamoto carried out the initial research underlying bitcoin and interacted with other digital currency enthusiasts via email chains and online forums.

However Nakamoto sent his final message in 2011 and he then vanished entirely.

In a further twist, the cryptocurrency wallets believed to belong to Nakamoto are said to hold around 1 million Bitcoin, currently worth more than $60bn (£46bn), which potentially could make Satoshi the 20th richest person in the world.

The contents of these cryptocurrency wallets have not been touched.

Previous reports have suggested early Bitcoin enthusiasts such as Hal Finney, Nick Szabo and Adam Back as potential inventors of the cryptocurrency, but all men have denied being Nakamoto.

The HBO documentary, made by filmmaker Cullen Hoback, alleges that 39 year old Peter Todd is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, however the Canadian denies this.

The film apparently cited some circumstantial evidence, including Todd’s interest in cryptography from a young age, his relationship with Adam Back, his technical ability, and Satoshi’s use of British/Canadian spellings juxtaposed with the fact that Todd is from Canada.

But the central piece of possible ‘evidence’ related to a 2010 forum post, in which Todd responded to one of Satoshi’s posts.

Cullen Hoback alleged that Todd’s post was a continuation of Satoshi’s post, but accidentally sent from an account with Todd’s name on it instead of Satoshi’s.

Todd’s response

It should be noted that the documentary film did not definitively conclude that Todd was Satoshi.

And Todd dismissed the claims in the documentary when confronted, labelling the claim as “ludicrous.”

Todd also repeatedly denied he is Satoshi via his account on X (formerly Twitter).

During the interview Todd laughed and said: “You’re pretty creative” when the Hoback said he was Satoshi.

Todd called the allegations a “crazy theory”, adding: “I warn you this is going to be very funny when you put it into the documentary.”

Other claims

There have been many theories as to who could be the cryptocurrency’s creator over the past decade.

In 2014, a high-profile article in Newsweek identified Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American man living in California as Satoshi.

However Nakamoto denied it.

In 2015, Wired and Gizmodo published an investigation that pointed to Australian IT researcher, businessman, and computer scientist Dr Craig Wright.

In May 2016 Wright publicly claimed in a blog post that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

But many in the crypto community were sceptical of Wright’s claim, in part because he had not moved any of the early Bitcoin thought to have been mined by Satoshi.

A court case in London began on 5 February 2024 after the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) took Dr Wright to court to stop him suing bitcoin developers.

This was because since May 2019, Craig Wright has been using English libel law to sue people who denied he was the inventor of bitcoin, and who called him a fraud. The alliance asked for a ruling that Dr Wright was not Satoshi.

Mr Justice Mellor (a High Court judge) had ruled in March 2024 that Craig Wright was not ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, saying there was “overwhelming” evidence that he is not Satoshi.

Then in May 2024 in a written judgement, Mr Justice Mellor issued a damning ruling, stating that Craig Wright had lied “extensively and repeatedly” and forged documents “on a grand scale” to support his false claim that he was the inventor of bitcoin.

Craig Wright was then forced to update the homepage of his personal website with a legal notice for six months, that publicly declares that he is not the inventor of Bitcoin.