Billy Markus, who teamed up with Jackson Palmer to create the original meme-themed cryptocurrency Dogecoin in 2013, took to his account on the X social media platform (formerly popular as Twitter) to share his expectations on the HBO movie that is coming out next week, promising to reveal the true identity of the mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
It is worth noticing that Dogecoin was made as a joke on Bitcoin, using BTC code as basis. Besides, Markus is known on X as “Shibetoshi Nakamoto” – another joking reference to the Bitcoin creator’s pseudonym.
Polymarket users bet Len Sassaman was Satoshi
In the meantime, data from Polymarket has revealed that users have been actively making bets on who Satoshi Nakamoto will prove in reality when revealed by the above-mentioned HBO documentary. 75% of the bet-makers believe that Satoshi is Len Sassaman, a cryptographer and privacy advocate, who according to the official version tragically killed himself in early 2011 – just two months after Satoshi left a farewell post on the BitcoinTalk forum, saying he would be moving to other projects.
Len Sassaman, a famous cypherpunk who committed suicide in 2011, is, according to Polymarket, the most likely candidate to be unmasked as the real Satoshi Nakamoto by a new HBO documentary, due to air this coming Tuesday. Despite Politco reporting the documentary will reveal… pic.twitter.com/UIMFTTQq6u
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 5, 2024
Therefore, Billy Markus does not seem to expect any true original revelations from the documentary. Its creators interviewed many people, including Adam Back – a prominent cryptographer, who corresponded with Satoshi before the Bitcoin launch.
Markus waits to be “underwhelmed and disappointed” by HBO film
Back has many times denied being Satoshi. Samson Mow, the former CSO at Back’s company Blockstream and now CEO of JAN3, was also in the movie. He explained why he believes that Back is not Satoshi – the writing style is very different. However, Mow does believe that similar Chinese characters (if you spell his name in Chinese) in Satoshi’s name and the word “China” are hardly a coincidence.
i can’t wait to be underwhelmed and disappointed by the hbo satoshi documentary
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) October 4, 2024
Billy Markus was also several times asked on X if he is Satoshi and he always responded sarcastically to refute those speculations. Probably in light of all these developments, in a recent tweet, Markus stated: “i can’t wait to be underwhelmed and disappointed by the hbo satoshi documentary.”
Finally, Adam Back emphasized in today’s X post that Satoshi stopped using his pseudonym in 2011. “No one knows anything, so i think we’ll never know who it was. and that’s a good thing,” he summarized.
so it’s almost definitional: anyone talking with them is not satoshi. qed.
— Adam Back (@adam3us) October 5, 2024