“I’ve moved on to other things.” A shadowy figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, made this known in a cryptic email in April 2011 before disappearing from the face of the earth and sparking what has been called “the greatest mystery of the Internet age.”
For Nakamoto was the pseudonym of the creator of Bitcoin, the multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency that could 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 a million Bitcoin, currently worth £48 billion – and if its value continues to rise, he could become the world’s first trillionaire.
It is therefore not without reason that there is intense interest in who he could be.
For years, the Internet has been in the grip of what amounts to a major nerd hunt that has at one time or another focused attention on Nakamoto, a Japanese mathematician, a Finnish sociologist, an Irish student and an Australian computer scientist living in the suburb of Surrey.
If the creator of Bitcoin is British, then – many agree – the most obvious candidate is Adam Back, an experienced cryptographer with a PhD in computer science from the University of Exeter.
Some have even speculated that it could be Elon Musk, science fiction writer Neal Stephenson or the US National Security Agency, arguing that the latter could have created Bitcoin as a honey trap for criminals.
Now a television documentary claims none of these things were true and the real Nakamoto has been hiding in plain sight for years: Canadian Peter Todd, a Bitcoin developer and crypto expert.
Todd, 39, from Toronto, is reportedly a self-taught child prodigy who claims he learned to write computer code before he could read. He also has some extreme political views – arguing that Israel should “nuclear” 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 he’s the smartest guy in the room,” one contributor told the program.
Unfortunately for HBO’s documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, Todd denies being Nakamoto. When accused of this on camera by filmmaker Cullen Hoback, he laughs off 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 because it would expose him to kidnappers and other criminals. Todd said he would have destroyed any evidence that showed him the way.
Hoback, who spent three years flying around the world speaking to early Bitcoin associates, insists Todd did a poor job of covering his tracks.
He comes up with a series of clues – none of which are conclusive, but taken together, certainly curious – that could identify Todd. Perhaps most significant is a 2010 online exchange on a Bitcoin forum in which Todd responded to a message from Nakamoto in a way that seemed to continue his line of thought.
Todd, Hoback thinks, had accidentally posted from the wrong account, giving away that he was Nakamoto.
Three days later, both accounts went silent.
The documentary reveals that Todd claimed on an old resume to be proficient in a programming language used to create the original Bitcoin code, only to later deny knowing it. Todd also allegedly created a fake person’s online account to add a feature to Bitcoin without being identified as the tinkerer.
Hoback searches through Nakamoto’s messages and discovers that he’s using 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 a degree in fine arts when Nakamoto unveiled Bitcoin, the documentary reveals that most of those posts were posted online during the summer – when a student would naturally have much more free time.
A television documentary claims 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 that he is Satoshi Nakamoto
‘What if the real reason for the use [the false name] Satoshi, for the [sake of] anonymity, was so people could take Bitcoin seriously” and believe it was created by a famous cryptographer and “not by some kid in school,” says Hoback.
By denying that he is the creator of Bitcoin, Todd at least admitted that the real Nakamoto would say that. In the days since the program was released on HBO, many other people in the cryptocurrency world have disputed its conclusion, insisting that – once again – Nakamoto sleuths have unmasked the wrong person.
Every other potential Nakamoto who has ever been ‘revealed’ has suffered a similar fate. But if it wasn’t Todd, who could it be?
Some continue to believe that Nakamoto is British – and not just because of the numerous British English spellings and words he used online before he became concerned about covering his tracks. Nakamoto’s comments usually appeared online after normal business hours had ended in Britain (which would have been the middle of the business day in North America).
Most revealing, some believed, was Nakamoto reading a British newspaper: when he created the first 50 Bitcoins, known as the “genesis block,” he permanently inserted a short line of text into the data that read: “The Times 03/ Jan/2009 Chancellor on the verge of a second bank bailout.
This was a reference to a headline in a Times newspaper article stating that the British government had failed to stimulate the economy and many observers believed that Nakamoto’s subliminal message was that it was time to try something new, such as Bitcoin.
And if the creator of Bitcoin is British, then – many agree – the most obvious candidate is Adam Back, an experienced cryptographer with a PhD in computer science from the University of Exeter.
Like Todd, he was a computer whiz from an early age, teaching himself BASIC coding on a Sinclair ZX81, an early home computer. 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 using strong privacy-enhancing technology – such as supposedly untraceable cryptocurrencies – to bring about political and social change.
Back, 54, and now living in Malta, in 1997 he invented Hashcash, a precursor to Bitcoin, and played a role in Bitcoin’s early development. He was one of the first people known to communicate with Nakamoto Nakamoto, although these email exchanges could have been spoofed to suggest they were different people.
He remains an enthusiastic apostle of Bitcoin and runs a company called Blockstream that helps people “mine” the currency – an energy-intensive process that requires computers to solve extremely complex 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 nearly 1.5 million times since its release in 2020.
It is claimed that the entrepreneur filed numerous patents for digital inventions every year until 2005, when he suddenly stopped and ‘disappeared’ until 2010 – a year after Bitcoin was released.
The video also pointed out that both Nakamoto and Back leave double spaces after typing each sentence and that he had a history of leaving political messages in computer code – much like the headline reference in the Bitcoin code. The fact that Back moved to Malta, known for its low tax status, in 2009 – the year of Bitcoin’s introduction – was also noted.
And Back happened to be Peter Todd’s mentor, who helped the Canadian understand cryptography, the hiding and encoding of the information at the heart of cryptocurrencies.
Historically, Back has avoided media attention, but surprisingly he was happy to play a prominent role in the HBO documentary.
It’s hard to watch Back, who looks a bit devious and often laughs nervously in the program, and not come to the conclusion that he knows a lot more than he’s letting on about the mystery.
Indeed, the filmmaker Hoback tells him that he initially believed it was Back and not Todd Nakamoto. Back seems relieved, if not amused, when Hoback – who perhaps felt he should put a new name in the frame – finally tells the two friends which of them he suspects.
The Englishman seems certain 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 lawsuit in 2020 and had to pay Back’s legal fees.
In March this year, a High Court judge in London backed Back’s claim by ruling that Wright is not Nakamoto and referring him to prosecutors for alleged perjury.
We may never know the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and besides, the Bitcoin bubble could still implode and its value crash – and who would want to admit that he is the real Nakamoto?