Man Accused of Being Satoshi Nakamoto Goes Into Hiding

"Frankly, nobody deserves getting a target painted on their back."

Witch Hunt

In a recent HBO documentary called "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery," filmmaker Cullen Hoback squarely pointed the finger at Canadian cryptographer and software developer Peter Todd, accusing him of being the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Todd, as Wired reports, has since gone into hiding, highlighting an over-a-decade-long witch hunt for the person who started Bitcoin — an individual presumed to hold the keys to potentially billions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency.

Nakamoto, the shadowy pseudonym behind the person who is thought to have developed Bitcoin and authored the white paper introducing it almost two decades ago, has led to plenty of speculation about their true identity.

Todd denied the report, telling Wired that "for the record, I am not Satoshi."

"I think Cullen made the Satoshi accusation for marketing," he added. "He needed a way to get attention for his film."

I'm Spartacus

Todd is only the latest individual to be publicly accused of being Nakamoto.

But after being thrown into the limelight against his will, Todd has now gone on the lam. Hoback, for his part, remains confident that Todd is Nakamoto.

"While of course we can’t outright say he is Satoshi, I think that we make a very strong case," he told Wired.

There are plenty of reasons why Todd may have chosen to go into hiding. Meredith Patterson, the widow of cryptographer Len Sassaman, who has remained a popular candidate for being Nakamoto, told the magazine about the abuse she endured.

"People used to be really fucking nosy and entitled," she said. "I’d get people writing me with a two-page list of dates and locations, asking where I was at such and such a time or place. Where do you get off?"

"I was relieved for myself and my family that they named Peter Todd," she added. "But I feel sorry for Peter Todd. Frankly, nobody deserves getting a target painted on their back."

Todd told Wired that he's had dozens of people flooding his email inbox, asking for money.

"Obviously, falsely claiming that ordinary people of ordinary wealth are extraordinarily rich exposes them to threats like robbery and kidnapping," he said. "Not only is the question dumb, it's dangerous. Satoshi obviously didn't want to be found, for good reasons, and no one should help people trying to find Satoshi."

Hoback, however, sees Todd's denial as a way to throw off those hunting for the true identity of Nakamoto.

"It doesn’t surprise me at all that Peter would go on the offense," he told Wired. "He’s a master of game theory — it’s what he does. He has spent a lot of years now muddying the waters."

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