‘I'm Not Satoshi’: HBO Documentary Money Electric Misfires on Bitcoin Creator Reveal

"Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery," HBO’s latest documentary, aired and hit the Max streaming service Tuesday night, promising to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin. 

The documentary, directed by Cullen Hoback, explores Bitcoin’s origins and introduces several figures from the early days of its development, including Blockstream CEO Adam Back.

Hoback ultimately zeroes in on Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd, presenting a series of clues suggesting that he could be the crypto’s elusive inventor.

Primarily, Hoback focuses on a forum post from Todd in reply to the pseudonymous Satoshi, which the director believes was actually Todd continuing Satoshi's thought—as if it was the same person using multiple accounts.

He also notes Todd's writing style in relation to Satoshi, Todd's own efforts as a teenager to turn the earlier Hashcash experiment into a functional currency, and what's been described as non-professional-level C++ code behind the Bitcoin protocol. Finally, Hoback suggests that the Satoshi pseudonym was used so that people would take Bitcoin seriously.

But, like previous attempts to unmask Satoshi, the film fails to provide definitive proof, and critics have dismissed the theory as speculative—and based on faulty assumptions.

“Cullen probably has a case for it,” Samson Mow, CEO of Bitcoin technology company JAN3 and former chief strategy officer of Blockstream—who is featured in the documentary—told Decrypt. “I did say on record in the documentary that it’s probably not Peter.”

Shortly before the documentary aired on Tuesday, Todd replied to a post by BitMex Research on Twitter (aka X), stating: "I'm not Satoshi."​

A familiar narrative

The documentary follows a well-trodden path in its search for Nakamoto, revisiting names long associated with the mystery, including Back and the late Hal Finney, a cryptographer and an early Bitcoin adopter previously known for his significant contributions to Bitcoin’s development.

Despite its high production value and engaging interviews, "Money Electric" has been criticized for relying too heavily on circumstantial evidence and confirmation bias, echoing the infamous 2014 Newsweek debacle that wrongly identified an unrelated man as Nakamoto.

Skepticism grows

The documentary's release has been met with a muted response from the crypto community, many of whom were skeptical of any claims to reveal Satoshi’s true identity. 

Previous speculation around Nakamoto’s identity has sometimes led to market volatility. The lack of convincing evidence in Money Electric appears to have limited any such reaction this time. 

Bitcoin remained unchanged over the last 24 hours, trading at $62,200, according to CoinGecko data.

The identity of Bitcoin’s creator continues to be one of the greatest mysteries in modern finance, and Money Electric will likely join the list of documentaries that have failed to provide a conclusive answer.

“It doesn't matter who Satoshi is at this point,” Mow said. “Bitcoin has grown past the need for a creator.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward