“Of course I’m not Satoshi,” Peter Todd said on Tuesday, accusing filmmaker Cullen Hoback of “grasping at straws.”
Peter Todd, a former Bitcoin developer, denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, just hours before the premiere of an HBO documentary suggesting otherwise.
Clips from HBO’s “Satoshi Nakamoto” documentary, which leaked ahead of its Tuesday night debut, appeared to hint that Todd might be the creator of the cryptocurrency. However, Todd firmly denied the claim. In an email to CoinDesk, he criticized filmmaker Cullen Hoback—known for unmasking the figure behind the QAnon conspiracy in a previous HBO series—stating Hoback was “grasping at straws” by suggesting he is Satoshi.
“Yes, that interview did happen, and I believe that specific shot isn’t deepfaked,” Todd acknowledged, though he admitted he had yet to watch the documentary. “But of course, I’m not Satoshi,” he reiterated, calling it ironic that a filmmaker famous for exposing QAnon would now rely on “QAnon-style, coincidence-based conspiracy thinking.”
Even in the leaked clips circulating on social media, Todd dismissed the theory linking him to Satoshi as “ludicrous.”
Hours before the scheduled premiere of Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery on Tuesday in New York, betting odds on Polymarket showed that the majority of participants believed the film would identify “Other/Multiple” individuals as Satoshi. Todd was not initially listed as a contender, meaning anyone who believed he would be revealed as Satoshi had to bet on the “Other/Multiple” option.
