HBO Doc Unveils 'Satoshi Nakamoto' Identity, Sparks $20M Bet: Do We Need to Know?
- 2024-07-23
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An hour ago, HBO, one of America's top streaming platforms, finally released a documentary about the founder of Bitcoin. In the trailer that piqued the interest of all cryptocurrency enthusiasts, HBO claimed that the film would reveal the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
In the past, speculations about Satoshi Nakamoto were merely discussed online, but this time it's different; people have started to bet money on it. As the documentary's director, Hoback, said, the betting on "who is Satoshi Nakamoto" has made the topic even hotter, with the betting pool on Polymarket accumulating to $20 million. Sitting in front of his computer, Hoback continuously manually refreshes the betting pool, watching the bets in the pool grow larger. Although he promises not to participate in the betting to earn money, the documentary undoubtedly has increased his fame in the film industry.
It is rumored that to prevent information leaks in advance, Hoback did a lot of confidentiality work during the production of the documentary. All interviews were conducted at different locations, and interviewees could only preview the parts related to themselves. In addition, the film editing was scattered among multiple editing companies, with no single company holding complete information about the film.
Who is the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has been a mystery for more than a decade since the birth of Bitcoin. More than a decade later, HBO has given its own answer, believing that the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is Peter Todd.
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Regardless of whether you know this name or not, you can tell how abstract this answer is from the odds. Even in Polymarket's betting options, there is Elon Musk's name, but there is no Peter Todd's name.
Who is Peter Todd?
We still need to see why HBO believes this person is Satoshi Nakamoto.
In HBO's documentary, director Hoback identifies Peter Todd as Satoshi Nakamoto, a person who has never been "suspected" before.Peter Todd is an early Bitcoin Core developer and cryptography consultant, residing in Canada, who first submitted code to Bitcoin Core in April 2012. He has been involved since the early stages of Bitcoin's development, making significant contributions particularly in the areas of security and privacy. Todd is well-known for advocating several key Bitcoin Improvement Proposals and for championing the robustness and security of the Bitcoin network.
Todd's professional career began in 2008 when he started as an electronic designer at Gedex Inc. After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Integrated Media from OCAD University in 2011, he has been dedicated to the development of the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. Not only Bitcoin, but over the years, he has been involved in multiple projects in the cryptocurrency industry, including serving as the chief scientist for Mastercoin, Dark Wallet, and Coinkite. In development, Todd is a security-focused developer who often highlights potential vulnerabilities and works on researching solutions to mitigate risks.
In the community, Todd is also an active member, frequently sharing his insights on Twitter and has a large following. His tweets cover a range of topics, including new cryptocurrency developments, industry news, and events. Todd also often appears at many Bitcoin conferences and events, and many who have heard him speak consider Todd to be an excellent speaker and host.
However, the answer provided by director Hoback obviously fooled everyone, as the most critical evidence and conclusion he could present in his "rigorous" deduction process was that in this conversation, Satoshi Nakamoto mistakenly switched accounts and used Peter Todd's account to reply to everyone.
But in fact, this does not prove that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, as netizens in the community said and as Peter Todd clarified, Todd was merely correcting or clarifying Nakamoto's posts at the time, not mistakenly switching accounts. Such a "deduction" is clearly insufficient evidence.
Some professionals also pointed out that HBO got Peter Todd's timeline wrong in the entire documentary, mistakenly thinking he was Satoshi Nakamoto. In fact, in 2008, Peter Todd was not even 16 years old, which is very inconsistent in age, and his life experiences also differ greatly from what is known about Satoshi Nakamoto. Moreover, Todd has long served as a consultant for multiple projects, and if he were indeed Satoshi Nakamoto, his Bitcoin wallet could not have remained completely untouched for so many years.
In response to this, Peter Todd himself is extremely dissatisfied and publicly denies being Satoshi Nakamoto. He has repeatedly stated on social media that Hoback's theory is very absurd. Todd even sarcastically said in a tweet: "A director known for filming QAnon documentaries is also adopting QAnon-style conspiracy thinking here."
More abstractly, after Peter Todd was suspected by HBO to be Satoshi Nakamoto, many related MEME coins emerged on the Solana chain, and a large number of netizens also asked him in comments and emails if he had pets. Annoyed, Peter Todd responded on Twitter, "I only have one pet, and its name is your mom." The "scolded" netizens were delighted and derived the $yourmom token from this meme, continuing to speculate on MEME.
Currently, the attitude of most community netizens is to blame HBO and Hoback, as Hoback's attitude seems very casual and disrespectful to Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, and cryptography. "Peter Todd is Hoback's last straw. Because he doesn't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, he randomly pointed out a name."
More thoughtful community members have expressed that Peter Todd may face some life safety issues due to Hoback's "casualness," after all, Hoback's influence in the film industry is still quite significant, and ordinary people do not have the ability to discern the truth, "They may go after Peter Todd, as everyone knows that it's worth $68 billion."It's a good thing that no one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
Let's briefly go back to September 2008, shortly after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. To address the crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department launched an unprecedented large-scale bailout, while the Federal Reserve flooded the market with liquidity, attempting to stimulate the U.S. economy by printing money excessively. It wasn't just within the United States that suffered; the entire world was affected. The value of dollars held by various countries plummeted, leading to a series of butterfly effects such as intensified exchange rate fluctuations and a stampede-like stock market crash; the global economy was suddenly mired in a recession from which it was difficult to extricate itself.
Three months after Lehman's bankruptcy, a paper signed by Satoshi Nakamoto was published online, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." The paper detailed how to use a peer-to-peer network to create an electronic transaction system that "does not rely on trust." Bitcoin was thus born.
To this day, Bitcoin has gone through nearly 16 years, from an initial trading price of $0.0008 to the current $62,000, with a total market value of $1.3 trillion. Bitcoin has gradually appreciated more than 77.5 million times.
The mysterious founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is said to own about 1.1 million Bitcoins, which is $68 billion, making it the most unresolved asset in the cryptocurrency circle. Over the past few years, discussions about who Satoshi Nakamoto is have never ceased.
I personally find it most abstract that I don't know if anyone remembers the phrase "not your key, not your coin." At the time, when everyone opposed CSW claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, they directly asked him to transfer from Nakamoto's wallet; as long as you can transfer, no matter how impossible, it is 100% certain. But in this documentary, none of this matters.
Like all top-notch suspense films, Satoshi Nakamoto, forever an unknown answer, is the optimal solution. Perhaps it's him, perhaps it's her, perhaps it's them, perhaps it's everyone, perhaps we have already guessed the answer, or perhaps we are still far from the answer. However, it is this mystery that endows Bitcoin with a unique vitality.
Satoshi Nakamoto's anonymity is not just a mysterious attraction but also symbolizes the decentralized spirit of Bitcoin. This decentralized concept does not rely on any single authority or individual but distributes power to every participant. It is precisely because Nakamoto has never revealed himself that Bitcoin has been able to maintain its purity, avoiding personal cults and human intervention. Nakamoto's retreat allowed Bitcoin to transcend personal will from the moment of its birth and become part of a global consensus.
Perhaps the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is not important; what truly matters is the philosophy behind Bitcoin and the changes it brings to the world. It provides a new financial model, breaking the monopoly of the traditional banking system and giving individuals more control and freedom.No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, and perhaps that is the best ending. The power of Bitcoin lies not in one person, but in everyone. Each of us is Satoshi Nakamoto, part of this decentralized revolution and historic experiment. Maybe we never needed to know who Satoshi Nakamoto is. Bitcoin has grown from an idea into today's global phenomenon because it represents much more than a name or an individual. It symbolizes the desire of countless people for financial freedom and privacy, and the power of technology to change the world.
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