Who Is Satoshi? HBO Documentary Claims To Know And Sparks Polymarket Bets

One of the longest-standing myths surrounding Bitcoin is who Satoshi Nakamoto is, the enigmatic creator of the network. Years have gone by without any clues, but a new HBO documentary, ready to air on Oct. 8, claims to know who is behind the oldest blockchain.

Titled Electric Money: The Bitcoin Mystery, the documentary claims to have figured out who Satoshi is – and they plan to reveal who the person is.

The new documentary has sparked gamblers to flock to Polymarket and start speculating on who HBO will reveal is Bitcoin’s creator.

Bettors are leaning into a privacy advocate and cryptographer named Len Sassaman. He was a famous cypherpunk who committed suicide in 2011 at the age of 31, just two months after Satoshi sent his last email announcing he was “moving on to better things.”

Polymarket speculators are placing his odds to be unmasked on Tuesday at 48% after a brief peak to 67%. Another lesser-known cryptographer, Paul Le Roux, is also among the top three potential people to be Satoshi. Le Roux is a former programmer, criminal cartel boss, and informant to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Bettors place his odds at 9%.

Down the line, other more known figures populate the board. Hal Finney, a renowned cryptographer who spoke about ZK technology more than two decades ago, and the person to receive the first Bitcoin transfer from Satoshi in 2009 lands in second with 13% of bets.

He is followed by Nick Szabo (5%), who had a botched attempt at digital money in the late 1990s with Bitgold, and Adam Back (6% odds) the first person Satoshi reached out to, and one of the few people named in the Bitcoin whitepaper to continue working in Bitcoin.

A category dubbed “other” reaps 24% of bets.

The Endless Search

Since Bitcoin launched in 2009, people have been on the hunt to find out who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

A plethora of theories exist, from the aforementioned cypherpunks all the way to the CIA – which has found a large number of adepts, especially because the government agency was behind Bitcoin’s underlying SHA-256 algorithm. But, nobody has been able to provide conclusive evidence.

Nevertheless, many are bearish on the idea of finding out who they actually are.

Not because it will affect the protocol – the network has achieved a level of decentralization where no one person can decide its direction – but because it paints a potential bullseye on whoever the person is, granted they still live.

“Accusing someone of being Satoshi without providing bulletproof evidence makes you a massive asshole, because you're painting a target on them,” posted earlier this year a renowned Bitcoin OG, Jameson Lopp. “Even if that person is dead, you're endangering their family.” He added that this sentiment still rings true today.

Lopp was replying to another post by open source developer Rusty Russell who wrote “Speculating on Satoshis identity is not just a way to increase someone's risk of violent theft attempts: it also pointlessly disrespects his clear desire for privacy,” he wrote. “Be classy: keep your fantasies to yourself."