Warning: Review may contain spoilers... (of Satoshi's Nakamoto's alleged identity)
Unless you've been living under a rock in Bitcoin world, you'd know that the space has been abuzz with news of an HBO documentary alleging to reveal the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Of course, most people have responded to the news with great skepticism, and rightfully so. But I figured I'd give the movie a shot. And why not? May as well watch it, write a review, and earn some sats while I'm at it.
The film tries to do two things at once. First, it tries to tell the story of Bitcoin, which it assumes the audience is not familiar with. Second, it traces the filmmaker's attempt to discover the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin history... how'd the film do?
As a simple documentary about Bitcoin, I found the film to be decidedly mid. It tries to tell the story of Bitcoin with a combination of interviews, news clips, and animations. I enjoyed watching the interviews with some key players in Bitcoin, most notably Adam Back, Samson Mow, and Peter Todd. I even enjoyed hearing from Bitcoin detractor Nouriel Roubini. The interviews, in my opinion, were the best part of the film because you could really see each individual's personality come through the screen.
However, many statements made by the film betray a lack of understanding of Bitcoin, or even a contradictory understanding of Bitcoin. Just a few examples:
- The film claimed that if Satoshi's identity were discovered, governments could use that info to shut down Bitcoin. (This is not true because Bitcoin will keep operating even if Satoshi moved all his coins.)
- The film claimed that blockchain technology, designed to fight government control of money, eventually led to CBDCs, the very thing blockchain was trying to prevent. (This is not true because CBDCs don't have the same consensus protocol as Bitcoin, which was the true innovation.)
- The film claimed that early Bitcoiners didn't know transactions could be traced through the blockchain. (Even I knew within a few weeks of using Bitcoin that you can trace the entire history of UTXOs.)
- It claimed that in the blocksize wars, the small blockers were more aligned with government interests, which I don't understand. It also claimed that Blockstream was trying to take over Bitcoin and control all the transactions, which I also don't understand.
The film didn't get everything about Bitcoin wrong. It got some stuff right, but it got enough wrong that I can't really recommend it as a way of getting introduced to Bitcoin. Newbies will be a bit misled by watching this film, and experienced Bitcoiners will be frustrated by the stuff it gets wrong.
So, who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
In terms of the much ballyhooed claims about Satoshi's identity, I'll just say that I remain unconvinced. The film focuses most of its attention on Adam Back and Peter Todd. Len Sassaman was not even mentioned once, which is surprising since he's one of the leading suspects. Hal Finney was mentioned but quickly dismissed. I kinda felt like they focused on Adam Back and Peter Todd simply because they were able to secure interviews with them, and thus set up a "dramatic confrontation" with Todd towards the end of the film.
So if you hadn't heard already, the film ultimately points the finger at Peter Todd. The evidence offered is circumstantial at best. Apparently:
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Peter Todd made a post on BitcoinTalk, shortly before Satoshi disappeared, seeming to complete Satoshi's thoughts from an earlier post. The thought was on a technical subject, which the film uses to claim that Todd was familiar with the technical aspects of Bitcoin earlier than he claims.
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Peter Todd disappeared for two years from BitcoinTalk right around the same time Satoshi disappeared.
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A chat leak in which Peter Todd allegedly claims to "know more about sacrificing Bitcoin than anyone else", or something to that effect. The implication is that if he's Satoshi and he burned his keys, he'd know more than anyone else about sacrificing Bitcoin.
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Satoshi's posting history allegedly follows a school-year type pattern, more active during the summer and less active during school semesters. Peter Todd would have been in school during those years.
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There was some other stuff about Peter Todd allegedly creating a fake account pretending to be a government agent, to try and get real Peter to create RBF... but I couldn't really understand how that was relevant to Satoshi's identity.
All in all, it feels like pretty weak evidence. There is some circumstantial evidence that both Todd and Back were involved in Bitcoin much earlier than either one claims... but I don't think that counts as evidence that either one of them is Satoshi.
I was disappointed that a film purporting to be about Satoshi's identity didn't dive deeper into the various theories about Finney and Sassaman. It didn't mention the episode with Dorian Nakamoto, and it gave Faketoshi only minimal coverage. I would've enjoyed a thorough study of the various theories, fake claimants, and dead ends that others have pursued... that would have been a film worth watching. But that's not what this film did.
Ultimately, I think experienced Bitcoiners will find the film a frustrating watch, but they may enjoy some of the interviews. If you're short on time, I'd recommend you skip it. If you've got nothing better to do, give it a watch so you can chat about it in the forums (and earn some sats while doing it.)