The Breakdown - Did an HBO Documentary Just Reveal Satoshi's True Identity?

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

One of the great mysteries of the modern age is the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. This year, we got a definitive court judgement that it was not Craig Wright (which any bitcoiner could have told you). Now, we get a new documentary from HBO that advances a new, fairly surprising theory. What do you think? Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi with ExSat The exSat Network aims to unlock and scale the Bitcoin ecosystem without compromising Bitcoins Ideology. The network has partnered with the largest mining pools in the world, major custodians and exchanges, Cefu, Cubolt, Matrixport, Copper, OKX and aims to have over $200M TVL at mainnet launch on the 23rd of October.  Follow exSat’s Twitter to stay up to date @exsatnetwork or visit the testnet exsat.network Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nathanielwhittemorecrypto Subscribe to the newsletter: https://breakdown.beehiiv.com/ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, October 9th, and today we are revealing the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Maybe. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link of the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, today we are kicking off with a spoiler alert. Last night, HBO aired their Satoshi documentary, which was advertised as revealing the Bitcoin founder's true identity.

Now, if you want to watch the show with no spoilers, skip ahead. But heading into last night, there was rampant speculation on what would be revealed. Peter Hoback, the show's director, said he would be presenting a novel theory that presumably ruled out the usual suspects like Adam Back and Paula Rue. Late last week, there were discussions the documentary would present the case that deceased hacker Len Sassiman is Satoshi. Many, many people thought that that was the leading candidate, but his widow nixed that idea and comments to DL News yesterday.

With the leading candidate taken off the board, prediction markets focused on smart contract pioneer Nick Sabo as the best possibility. Still, generally, markets had no idea, with the other slash multiple category taking the majority of the bets. It turns out, drum roll please, that the show's director believes that Peter Todd is Satoshi. Todd was a prominent Bitcoin core contributor dating back to 2010. At the time of Bitcoin's creation, Todd was in his early 20s and had just finished college. In the documentary, Hoback confronted Todd with his theory that the real reason for using the Satoshi identity was, quote,

so that people could take Bitcoin seriously, so they could believe it was created by a famous cryptographer and not some kids still in school. Hoback then launched into a convoluted theory about a stray post on the Bitcoin Talk Forum discussing a feature called replaced by fee. He also leaned on a 2010 chat log message from Todd, where he claimed to be, quote, the world's leading expert on how to sacrifice your bitcoins. I've done one such sacrifice, and I did it by hand. Hobat claimed this was an admission from Todd that he had destroyed the private keys to the Satoshi wallets. And pretty much that's the whole case. Now, during the confrontation scene, Todd responded, this is going to be very funny when you put this into the documentary and a bunch of Bitcoiners watch it. Well, a bunch of

bitcoins have now watched it and think it's pretty ludicrous. Kiyangju, the CEO of Crypto Quant, tweeted, the HBO documentary is disgusting. It's baffling they reached this conclusion when all the Bitcoin experts disagree. It's like making a flat earth documentary without reviewing from scientists and promoting it as unveiling Earth secrets. Bitmec's research was similarly insulted, adding, around 15 minutes of the long film is dedicated to trying to indicate that Peter Todd is Satoshi. The quote-unquote evidence for this claim in the film is absolutely pathetic,

being both wrong and inconsequential at the same time. Seems they just perhaps added the Satoshi claim into boost interest in the otherwise average documentary. Evan S. 6 commented, homie went as far as to make a whole documentary got it on HBO only to name Peter Todd as Satoshi. Beanie tweeted, I like Peter Todd. I wish he was Satoshi, but this is just sloppy journalism. Now, as the day has gone on, there have been a few folks who are willing to at least consider the idea. Journalist Isabella Kaminska writes,

If you're waking up to news that HBO supposedly embarrassed itself by suggesting Peter Todd as Satoshi, here are a few things to bear in mind about immediate claims that it can't be Todd. This is based on my independent analysis, which, even if not technical, is entirely neutral as I've never claimed to know who Satoshi is. One, the vast majority of people laughing at the dock spent most of the week convinced Len Sassiman would be named Satoshi because they didn't have the basic arithmetic skills to figure out the percentage probabilities on polymarket didn't add up to 100 unless another category was also a major frontrunner.

To find that category, you just needed to scroll down to the bottom of the options. So I wouldn't trust the knee-jerk crowd reaction. Remember, bulk of the crypto space is very susceptible to social engineering and being defrauded. Two, the fact that Todd would have been a kid when he started writing to the cypherpunks, 15 by his own admission, is another factor being used against the claim. But Vitalik, too, was a kid when he came up with Ethereum. Sivantz are like that. Not a credible counter-criticism, in my opinion. In fact, Satoshi is often deemed to have been self-taught with strange gaps in his otherwise high-grade knowledge. Three, I don't think people have absorbed properly that

Cullen's argument is that it's precisely because Todd was young and didn't have cloud in the community that he assumed an alias. Later, this proved advantageous for other myth-making reasons. But the original point is not illogical. Four, even if Todd mostly wrote the paper and was one of the ones who engaged in key development comm, says Satoshi, it doesn't exclude the possibility that he also got a lot of wing support from the OGs and the whole thing really was a group effort. Five, it's the body language in the dock that is the most compelling evidence in my humble opinion. Not that they would ever agree to do it, but I do wonder if both Todd and back could pass a polygraph test. Based on those reactions, I suspect results would be inconclusive

at best. Six, despite being a prominent name in the Bitcoin community, there is very little out there that is easy to download in terms of Todd's early credentials. His old TV being scrubbed from the internet adds to the mystery and is somewhat suspicious. 7. Todd speaks often about the fact that he spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve the money problem and was very nearly there. He also mentions key influences like Star Trek and the fact that his dad was an economist. All of this fits the profile. Eight, Todd is Canadian, which explains the Britishisms. Overall, totally agree none of the above is the definitive smoking gun, but I don't think it is laughable either. As the documentary maker says, the fact that there is always a knee-jerk and

usually over-the-top reaction to laugh off anyone even daring to float around the Todd name, usually spearheaded by the OGs, is suspicious in its own right and indicative of classic social engineering. At the end of the day, Todd being Satoshi is just as plausible as any of the other key pantheon suspect members. Still, overall, I think that the final word on this particular issue comes from Todd himself. And I'm not referring to where on Twitter he explicitly denied being Satoshi. I'm referring to the point where, as he's being confronted, he states, I suspect a lot of bitquiners are going to be very happy if you go this route, because it's going to be yet another example of journalists really missing the point in a way that's very funny. When asked what the point

was, Todd continued, the point is to make Bitcoin the global currency, and people like you being distracted by nonsense can potentially do good on that. Or as Jameson Lops summed up, the more Satoshi documentaries we have pointing fingers at different people, the better. I am Satoshi Nakamoto. Of course, this will be quite the debate going on, but still at least we have something to talk about today other than the elections impact on Bitcoin. This episode of The Breakdown is brought to you by XAT Network. As regular listeners know, one of the things that I think is really exciting right now is all of the new builder energy around Bitcoin, and XSat Network is a great example of that.

XAT Network utilizes a combined consensus mechanism of POW and POS, enabling miners to earn revenue and stakers to earn Bitcoin yield. Their state data index mirrors Bitcoin UTXO data, creating a venue for BTCFi to flourish and a platform to trade Bitcoin assets. X-SAT network partners with MatrixPort committing 5,000 to 10,000 NBTC to the network, assisting app development and enhancing security. Ultimately, the goal is for X-SAT network's decentralized asset custody to enable you to earn Bitcoin yield without sacrificing security or transparency. The X-Sat network aims to unlock and scale the Bitcoin ecosystem without compromising Bitcoin

ideology. Check out X-SAT.network or follow X-SAT on Twitter at X-XAT Network, that's X-S-A-T-N-E-T-W-R-K, and unlock Bitcoin. Defi with XSat. Next up, let's talk about the elections impact on Bitcoin. We're heading into the home stretch for the election and research shops are starting to unpack expected outcomes in the crypto markets. According to Standard Charter, a Trump administration is still the most positive thing for crypto markets in general.

Their forecast for the end of next year if Trump wins is Bitcoin going 3x, Ethereum 4x, and Solana 5x. Basically, Trump would be good for the entire market and risk would be on across the board. The prediction for Aheera's victory is more muted and inverted. Standard Chartered expects Bitcoin would outperform a theory. which in turn would outperform Salana. By no means are they predicting a bearish outcome, however, attaching a $7,000 price target to Ethereum and a $200,000 price target to Bitcoin by the end of next year. You'll note that the Bitcoin price target is the same under either president, suggesting that macro

forces will have a larger impact than regulatory policy. Chow Wang from Alliance Tao summed it up like this. Dispassionate view on how the outcome of the election affects crypto over the next four years. When it comes to Bitcoin, probably very little difference between the two candidates. Base cases both will continue to print insane amounts of money. I could even make this the case that Trump is less bullish than Harris if he and Elon pursue austerity, or if he raises tariffs, which are inflation. For Altz, they're primarily driven by money printing and innovation, not much difference on the money printing front, as I said earlier, but one of the two is meaningfully more pro-crypto innovation than the other two. Occam's razor is Alts fly higher under Trump.

When it comes to crypto startups, our data is unmistakable. Crypto entrepreneurial spirit has been alienated over the last two years in the U.S. thanks to Chokepoint 2.0 and the SEC. four more years of hostility from the government, and I predict there won't be any meaningful crypto innovation in the U.S. Another small interesting story, Bitcoin Savings and Rewards Platform Fold have filed to go public via merger. The stock will be listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker FLD. The merger with a blank check acquisition company already has board approval and is waiting

confirmation from shareholders and regulators. The merger is expected to be completed at a company valuation between $365 million and $420 million, depending on Bitcoin's price at the time. Fold was founded in 2019, but really came into their own during this site. Their origins were as a service that allowed users to exchange un-used gift cards for Bitcoin way back in 2014. Now the company pitches itself as a bridge between banking and Bitcoin. Fold offers a bank card that allows customers to earn Bitcoin cash back on everyday purchases. They also have features that allow users to earn Bitcoin by paying their mortgage or rent.

Fold's payment rails are fully integrated with the Lightning Network, making them a useful interface for fiat payments. The company has basic custody and trading services for cardholders, but hope to expand and add an OTC after going public. The company is still quite small with just 22 employees as of May of the year. The main selling point for stock investors seems to be the company's sizable Bitcoin Reserve. As of July, the company has a treasury of over 1,000 Bitcoin worth around $60 million. They view Bitcoin as their unit of account and plan to continue growing their treasury over the near term. Fould commented, we believe existing macro conditions to be favorable towards adding additional Bitcoin to our balance sheet at current market prices. And so,

the micro strategyification of the world continues. Now, the other big thing that I wanted to cover today is more on the macro side, where top economic planners in charge, China have dashed hopes of a large and continued stimulus. But because I am on the road and traveling, I apologize we were doing a slightly shorter than normal episode today. I will be back with that Chinese stimulus walkback and or if there's a more important story that comes up between now and then, whatever it is tomorrow. For now, however, appreciate you listening as always. And until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.