HBO's New Doc 'Money Electric' Claims to Solve the Biggest Mystery on the Internet—Who Created Bitcoin?

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has remained a mystery even as bitcoin has won over the likes of Wall Street giant BlackRock, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and world leaders.

Bitcoin's mysterious creator—Satoshi Nakamoto, who disappeared in 2011—has become one of the most fascinating legends of the modern age. Now, as some fear Satoshi Nakamoto’s unmasking could destroy bitcoin completely, a new documentary out this coming week claims to have solved the biggest mystery on the internet.

A bronze statue depicting Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin, was unveiled in Hungary in 2021 amid a bitcoin price boom that his unmasking now threatens to destroy.

A new HBO documentary titled Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery is set to air on Tuesday at 9pm ET, with producers claiming to have cracked the mystery of bitcoin's anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, Politico reported this week.

In an email, a publicist drumming up press for the film said it will "present a compelling case for who Satoshi Nakamoto may be" without going so far as to claim any sort of proof of Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity or new evidence.

Interest in Satoshi Nakamoto's identity has risen along with the value of the 1.1 million bitcoin the anonymous man, woman or group is believed to control, now worth around $66 billion at current prices.

Speculators on the Polymarket betting platform think it's most likely that Len Sassaman, a cypherpunk who took his own life in 2011, will be named as Satoshi by the HBO documentary, attracting 38% of punters.

However, Twitter posts written by Sassaman from bitcoin's earliest days show he was unimpressed by the technology.

"Personally, I think bitcoin is overhyped, but the hype itself is interesting," Sassman posted, adding in a separate post that "digital cash experts I've talked to [say] that it's bunk."

Other names tipped as possibilities include Hal Finney, who received the first bitcoin transaction before he died in 2014, bit gold developer Nick Szabo and Blockstream chief executive Adam Back.

But the prediction market site is also putting a 90% likelihood on Satoshi's identity not being proven in 2024.

Adding to the excitement, early bitcoin wallets from the Satoshi era—when they were still posting on the BitcoinTalk forum—have recently woken up and started moving coins, Bitcoin Magazine recently reported.

Some 250 bitcoin worth around $15 million have been moved from wallets over the last two weeks.

If any of the bitcoin believed to be directly linked to wallets used by Satoshi Nakamoto is moved, it's expected to trigger a market crash as traders scramble to sell ahead of what could be a tsunami of bitcoin flooding the market.

The bitcoin price has surged this year, topping its previous all-time high and reigniting interest in the real identify of bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase warned ahead of its 2021 Nasdaq market debut that the unmasking of Satoshi Nakamoto is a major risk to its business.

"The identification of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, or the transfer of Satoshi’s bitcoins" is listed as a risk factor in the company’s prospectus.

Meanwhile, new research carried out by X user Wicked has suggested Satoshi Nakamoto conducted a 51% mining attack on the bitcoin network in its first year of existence, ostensibly to test what would happen if a single miner gained full control.

A 51% attack involves a bitcoin miner gaining majority control of the bitcoin network by "out hashing" other miners with sheer computational power. If a miner is able to do so, they would be able to reorder the network, triggering a likely fatal crisis of confidence.

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