Polymarket Speculators Now Think Nick Szabo Is Satoshi

While most prepare popcorn ahead of tomorrow’s release of an HBO documentary that promises to unmask who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, several renowned cryptographers are gaining traction among Polymarket bettors.

Nick Szabo, who had a botched attempt at creating digital money dubbed Bitgold, has been quietly rising in the polls and now commands the top spot with a 24% chance of being named Satoshi.

Bettors have placed nearly $7 million in bets ahead of the release of ‘Electric Money: The Bitcoin Mystery,’ which claims to have figured out who Satoshi is – and plans to reveal who the person is.

Until today, Len Sassaman was the top person to be tagged as Satoshi. A little-known cryptographer with great skills who worked alongside giants of the digital world like David Chaum, Sassaman committed suicide at age 31, only a few months after Satoshi sent his last message to contributors.

However, he has lost ground to Szabo and Adam Back, the inventor of HashCash and the first person to receive Bitcoin’s whitepaper from Satoshi himself. Back briefly took the lead on the morning of Oct. 7.

Back suddenly spiked to 22% of wagers on Polymarket, while Sassaman plummeted to 14%. But Sassaman quickly retook the lead and is now back in first place with 21% odds, while Back has dropped to 10%.

There is also a category dubbed others/multiple that offers 43% odds.

Sassaman aside, the figures bettors have been placing in recent days are highly unlikely to be Satoshi. For starters, it’s hard to believe that Bitcoin’s creator remains alive, especially considering the more than 1.1 million BTC – worth $69 billion – that is attributed to him from the first days of Bitcoin mining still hasn't moved to this day.

Nick Szabo, for example, already attempted to create digital money publicly, and it would be odd for him to try and succeed a second time without claiming the accomplishment.

Nevertheless, the quest to uncover who Satoshi is has been underway since the birth of Bitcoin, with no answers. That is, potentially, until tomorrow.