Who is Peter Todd, the man everyone suspects of being the supposed inventor of Bitcoin?
The long-awaited HBO documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery has already aired, and it has revealed the big secret everyone has been waiting for. According to this research, the inventor of Bitcoin is actually Canadian cryptographer Peter Todd.
As expected, Peter Todd was not happy about being accused. Among other things, because if it is him, his fortune is estimated at more than $60 billion.
Nowadays everyone knows that the creator of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto, but it is a pseudonym. Satoshi disappeared a few months after creating the first cryptocurrency. During that time, no one has seen or spoken to him personally.
By being the first to mine, when it was easier, Satoshi Nakamoto was able to amass a million bitcoins. At the time they were pocket money, but today they have made him one of the richest people in the world.
For 15 years, many people have sworn to be the creator of Bitcoin. Many others have denied it, including Elon Musk. Many others have investigated to discover who created it.
Emmy-nominated HBO documentary director Colin Hoback has done some of the most extensive research, interviewing people who had contact with Satoshi via chat. His conclusion is that Bitcoin’s creator is Peter Todd.
Peter Todd is a Canadian software developer and cryptographer, who was part of the team that created the Bitcoin infrastructure. Since 2010, he has worked in the blockchain space and on private projects related to cryptocurrencies.
According to Ars Technica, the main piece of evidence presented in the Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery documentary is a forum thread from December 2010 where Peter Todd appears to finish Satoshi’s sentences. The thread is about a Bitcoin function proposed by John Dillon, which Peter Todd, as Bitcoin’s developer, incorporated into the code. The documentary claims that John Dillon is also Peter Todd himself.
However, in 2010, Peter Todd was in his early twenties. Many doubt that someone so young could develop something as complex as cryptocurrency… unless he was a genius.
On the other hand, Peter Todd himself is suffering the consequences. He says he receives dozens of emails a day from people asking him for money. He has had to disappear to avoid the pressure.
The identity of Bitcoin's creator remains a mystery. The evidence against Peter Todd appears strong, but it is not conclusive.