“In investigations like these, digital forensics can only take you so far; they’re like a compass,” Hoback told POLITICO before the documentary aired. “Real answers can only be found offline.”
“Todd’s game theory is next level,” Hoback said. “Just consider, in the run-up to release: He’s in the trailer, there’s a multimillion-dollar betting pool, hundreds of thousands of tweets about the film and I didn’t see anyone suggest this possibility. He’s a fucking genius.”
The naming of Todd will be a blow to crypto-based prediction markets, which had until Monday identified the late Len Sassaman, an American information privacy advocate, as the favorite.
But the bitcoin and crypto industry were not immediately sold on the Todd-as-Satoshi theory. As news of the documentary’s findings trickled out, Jameson Lopp, a co-founder of bitcoin company Casa, posted on X that “wherever Satoshi may be, I like to think they’re having a laugh at this latest round of foolishness.”
Carter said he feels certain that Todd is not Nakamoto, in part because of deep knowledge the bitcoin creator would have had to have about cryptography and digital cash systems.
“There’s no bigger mystery in history,” he later said of the identity of Satoshi, who is believed to own a massive amount of bitcoin tokens. “The fact that Satoshi successfully pulled this off — it really is magical. I personally hope we never find out who Satoshi is.”
This story was updated with additional reactions to the documentary’s revelations.
Declan Harty contributed to this report.
