Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto? 5 Potential Candidates HBO Failed to Consider

The announcement of HBO’s brand new crypto documentary, “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery,” immediately sent the crypto community into a frenzy. This was touted as the final nail in the coffin of the age-old question: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto ? 

Though the program eventually identified an individual suspected of being the mysterious creator of Bitcoin (BTC) , it failed to convince many viewers that the riddle had been solved once and for all.

There are still several developers out there who stand a much better chance of being Nakamoto, and we’ll be looking at these individuals today. 

Peter Todd: “I Am Not Satoshi”

Near the very end of the documentary, after much speculation and research, HBO concluded that Nakamoto was none other than Peter Todd. Todd is a Bitcoin developer who has been vital in introducing new systems and features for the BTC blockchain , especially his work on Bitcoin 2.0.

With such deep knowledge of blockchain tech and the inner workings of cryptocurrency, why did so many people refute Todd as the one behind the Nakamoto pseudonym after the documentary aired?

First is the fact that Todd himself adamantly denies the claims, labeling them in the documentary as “ridiculous”. Even after being confronted by filmmaker Cullen Hoback, Todd laughs off the claims and even went to X after it aired to confirm “I am not Satoshi”.

Additionally, the primary evidence used is that Todd once referred to himself as “The world’s leading expert on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins,” but many in the community have seen this as insignificant proof. 

Therefore, it’s easy to understand why many believed the documentary did a poor job advocating its case, but this doesn’t mean that Bitcoin’s creator’s identity is lost forever. 

5 People Most Suspected to Be Satoshi Nakamoto 

Throughout the years, a small group of people within the crypto bubble have been suspected by members of the community of being the founders of Bitcoin. Let’s take a look at them one by one. 

1. Dorian Nakamoto 

Back in 2014, a Newsweek report titled “The Face Behind Bitcoin” claimed to have all the juicy info about who the real Satoshi Nakamoto was. The article argued that it was actually a potential relative of Satoshi, a man called Dorian Nakamoto.

After claiming that he was “No longer involved” with Bitcoin and that he “cannot discuss” further details, it seemed as though this mysterious figure might have been hiding his true identity. 

Additionally, Dorian was a Japanese-American man in his 60s and a very well-educated engineer in his past life, all of which align with his being the author behind Bitcoin’s whitepaper . 

Despite many people holding out hope that Dorian is the real Satoshi, he has continued denying the claim. This has made it difficult to discern whether it really is him or just a man who happens to share the same surname. 

2. Nick Szabo 

Nick Szabo is one of the earliest pioneers in crypto, having introduced the concept of “smart contracts”, which serve as an underlying bedrock of cryptocurrency in modern times. 

Szabo also envisioned “Bit Gold,” which he proposed to be entirely digital—a very early precursor to what crypto, including Bitcoin, would become. 

Though Szabo struggled to lift Bit Gold off the ground due to its reliance on third parties, ten years later, the Bitcoin whitepaper was released, resolving these issues and introducing decentralization . 

Many people suspect that, since Szabo was already aware of smart contracts, he was simply biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to figure out how to implement them into crypto and, in turn, separate the currency from banks.

Szabo has denied the claims on numerous occasions, but the timeline of his past work definitely aligns with the arrival of BTC. 

3. Len Sassaman 

The late Len Sassaman was truly gifted in software and cryptography. He had been a member of the U.S. Defcon team since 1993, a computer security researcher at the University of Leuven, and even worked on Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a program that laid the foundation for secure online communication. 

He was also a close affiliate with Hal Finney, another person many claim to potentially be Nakamoto. 

Sassaman was also very active during the cypherpunk period of the mid to late 90s , and even came into regular contact with David Chaum , the ‘godfather of crypto’.

One integral fact many people point to as an indication of Sassaman being Nakamoto is his involvement with Mixmaster. Mixmaster was an anonymous remailer that essentially allowed people to send messages without exposing their details, similar to how Bitcoin works with digital tokens.

There’s even an interview with Adam Back , who many also speculate to be Nakamoto, where he claims that there’s a high possibility Satoshi may have been a “remail developer” due to it being similar to Bitcoin’s architecture. 

Another potential clue, albeit an unfortunate one, is that Satoshi’s last known communication was in April 2011, just two months before Sassaman sadly took his own life. 

4. Adam Back 

Though the HBO documentary does mention Adam Back several times, it no doubt would have satisfied a much larger portion of its audience if it had landed on him as Bitcoin’s creator.

Many people, including prominent developers in the industry, have pointed to Back, primarily because of how much he’s mentioned in the BTC whitepaper. 

Back is specifically mentioned by name in the document, alongside his influential project HashCash, which was the precursor to what would be labeled Proof-of-Work (PoW) in the whitepaper. 

What added more fuel to the fire was that Back seemingly went off the radar completely after the whitepaper was published in 2008, potentially to avoid speculation. However, he then made a grand return on the Bitcointalk.org message board, where he seemed to have an advanced knowledge of Bitcoin’s development despite it being very early on.

Charles Hoskinson , the founder of Cardano (ADA) , has been just one of many who have publicly referenced Back as being the potential Nakamoto in the flesh. 

The final hint that the two are the same person is that many people have noticed Satoshi, despite claiming to be Japanese, possesses a British-English writing style. Adam Back, coincidentally, hails from London, England, making the claim even more believable.

5. Hal Finney 

Computer scientist Hal Finney was instrumental in the development of Bitcoin. He received the first Bitcoin transaction, meaning he was actively testing out the source code. 

He was also a prominent activist in the 1990s who vocally expressed his concern for centralisation and a lack of privacy that would result from the internet. This eventually led him to Crypto98, a conference where he spoke about the concept of Zero-Knowledge Proofs, which would become a vital part of Bitcoin’s infrastructure to establish where transactions originate. 

In 2004, Finney would also produce a report called ‘RPOW – Reusable Proofs of Work’ which was one of the only successful attempts to create a digital currency system that actually worked. Also, as many of us already know, Proof of Work has long been integrated into the Bitcoin blockchain, hinting at a potential connection. 

A final point to consider is the fact that Finney only lived a few doors down from Dorian Nakamoto. Is it possible that Finney admired his friend so much that he decided to name the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto after him? 

On the Flipside 

• Some suggest that it may be better that Nakamoto remain anonymous.
• Revealing Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity could make him a target of governmental and political pressure, potentially impacting the crypto industry as a whole. 

Why This Matters

Rather than resolving the Nakamoto mystery, the new HBO documentary has instead revived feverous debates about who the man behind cryptocurrency could be. While we may never know the true answer, the men listed above definitely cannot be taken out of the equation. 

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