(mysterious music playing)
Jamie Dimon: Every day, you know, you have nonstop Bitcoin.
Who cares about Bitcoin?
(click)
(cash register dings)
I couldn't care less what Bitcoin trades for,
how it trades, why it trades, who trades it.
If you're stupid enough to buy,
you'll pay the price for it one day.
(clicking)
YouTuber: Bitcoin is a fucking scam.
Donald Trump (on phone): Bitcoin seems like a scam.
-Magical internet money. -It has no intrinsic value.
(clicking)
Dimon: Bitcoin is worthless.
-What makes it valuable? -Totally BS.
Bitcoin is a dead end.
Brian Kelly: Bitcoin's dead again!
It's a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme,
and an economic disaster.
Whatever it's doing, it's not money.
Whatever Bitcoin is, it is not money.
-(clicking) -(cash register dings)
Bitcoin is simply gonna implode before you know it.
Today, we're having a funeral for Bitcoin.
Cullen Hoback: Despite all the doomsday prophecies,
just 15 years after launch, Bitcoin had become
the 10th most valuable asset in the world,
outperforming Wall Street by a massive margin.
One of the biggest unanswered questions
surrounding Bitcoin is who invented it.
Andy Court: When you ask about the creator,
who created this, we have no idea.
-There's these things called nerds. -(studio laughter)
And in 2008,
one of them made up Bitcoin out of thin air,
using the fake name Satoshi Nakamoto.
-Satoshi-- -Nakamoto.
Which, I think, are the Japanese words
-for Monopoly money. -(studio laughter)
Hoback: Satoshi Nakamoto,
the inventor of said Monopoly money,
was now presumably one of the richest people on Earth.
speaker: We are all Satoshi!
(applause, cheering)
Hoback: This anonymous character had developed quite a following.
And if all these pundits kept being wrong,
and Bitcoin kept going up,
then Satoshi could be worth
more than a trillion dollars.
-With a "T." -(cash register dings)
And that's because Satoshi controlled
a shit-ton of Bitcoin.
Enough to break the system.
But, many years ago, Satoshi had disappeared
without spending any of it.
What would happen
if Satoshi just reemerged one day
to cash in?
They'd be like king of the world.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Who do you think he really is?
Hoback: Simply put, Satoshi's identity
has remained the greatest mystery
of the Internet Age.
No one knows who they are, even though a lot of people
have tried to figure this out.
YouTuber: Tonight's plan? To reveal the identity
of Satoshi Nakamoto,
creator of Bitcoin.
Is he no longer here? Is he amongst us?
♪♪
Hoback: Well, someone probably knew.
Like maybe this guy...
It's too high risk for Satoshi to come back.
-(ding) -Hoback: ...who you'll get to know soon enough.
It's way too high risk.
What's risky about it?
Well, you get implicated as Satoshi.
And then, every country in the world
is gonna wanna go after you.
Or people are gonna go after you to steal it.
But, why does, like, a murderer
go back to the scene of the crime?
Satoshi's doing nothing to pick up his stash.
Hoback: Yeah, just a million Bitcoin.
And that's why he went to such great lengths
to conceal his identity.
He thought of everything.
Hoback: Well, not everything.
(dramatic music playing)
-Cash. -customer: That should be 1,000.
Hoback: How often do you pay with it?
customer: Such nice guns!
Hoback: You probably use your card for just about everything.
-Denied, denied... approved. -(studio laughter)
Hoback: But the cool thing about cash,
you hand over your money,
you get a thing,
and no bank, credit card company, government agency,
data broker, social media advertiser
gets to know about your hobbies.
But, it seemed like we were maybe on our way
to getting rid of cash entirely.
As the world transitions into a cashless society...
speaker: "We've gone cashless."
No one wants to carry around cash anymore. That's already-- Cash is gone.
Hoback: In fact, there are quite a few things about the dollar
that were just outdated because these dudes
-didn't have iPhones. -(notification chimes)
But, if you were to start from scratch,
how would you make cash for the digital age?
It was 2017
when I really started paying attention to Bitcoin.
And as a filmmaker
who was concerned with online surveillance...
Everything moved into ones and zeros,
and ones and zeros can be tracked and traced.
...the idea that Bitcoin
was supposed to protect your privacy was pretty appealing.
It was trying to be money for the internet.
♪♪
And it had a few features
that the current financial system just didn't.
-(bell clanging) -announcer: Fight!
Hoback: No single person or group controlled it,
it was basically impossible to shut down,
-it was scarce. -(Pikachu panting)
Anyone with an internet connection could access it.
-You are personally responsible for it. -(roars)
And it was super secure
unless you made a mistake.
And it was distributed through something called
"Bitcoin mining,"
which I tried.
-Even if you don't usually pay attention to Bitcoin... -(rummaging)
...you might have still heard about it.
Miners using powerful computers
to guess a random string of numbers
and win a Bitcoin reward.
Hoback: It's how new Bitcoins enter the system.
This fancy computing rig,
it's like a ticket to the Bitcoin lottery.
You said 1,600 Watts?
It takes a lot of electricity.
-(rustling) -And if your mining rig is the first in the entire world
to find the computational equivalent
of a golden ticket...
-I got it, Mr. Salt! Here it is! -(cheering)
Hoback: ...you win some freshly minted Bitcoin.
That means that some people are gonna lose a lot of money.
-Probably. -Oh yeah.
Hoback: And every 10 minutes, you get another shot.
It was the modern gold rush
from the comfort of your living room.
-But, my miner wasn't so lucky. -(fan whirring)
So, instead of winning a down payment for a house,
I just ended up with a large electricity bill.
-(whirring stops) -Eh, fuck.
And the occasional power outage.
I don't think this is gonna work. (laughs)
Meaning I'd have to go get my Bitcoin on an exchange,
kinda like how you buy stocks.
And like stocks,
people kinda hope that this digital asset
-is gonna make them rich. -(cheering)
Which, let's be honest, was the real draw.
(blasting music)
It was fueled by an online culture
that was invested in seeing Bitcoin win.
You're supposed to buy the dip. Buy Bitcoin.
Hoback: Designed to pull people away from a financial system
that seemed like it was stacked against the average person.
If you win all three rats,
-and they come in one-two-three, you win everything. -Oh, my God.
Drew Carey: But, you have to win some rats.
Hoback: And Bitcoin provided this glimmer of hope
that you might get out of the rat race.
-Look at them go! Oh, man, you're gonna have a car. -(crowd cheering)
(rats squeaking)
Hoback: Asking you to put your faith in math
instead of the government.
-I don't know what I said, ah! -We finally beat Medicare.
Hoback: So, maybe that's why in 2021,
an entire country adopted Bitcoin.
Because the current financial system
was also stacked against them.
-(street chatter) -(curious music playing)
This is El Salvador, a Latin American nation
plagued with a history of gang violence,
corruption, and civil war.
For more than 20 years, they had resorted
to using the US dollar as their official currency,
adding to why the president's announcement
sent shock waves around the world.
(crowd cheering)
Nayib Bukele: Where are the Bitcoiners?
Hoback: He planned to tie the country's future to Bitcoin.
For starters, they bought a bunch of it using...
reporter: 105 million taxpayer dollars.
Hoback: Then, the country began accepting Bitcoin
as legal tender.
Suddenly, Bitcoin could be used alongside the dollar
to pay for things like breakfast, real estate,
or even taxes.
At least, that was the idea.
We announced that El Salvador was making Bitcoin legal tender.
(crowd cheering)
We had some protests, did you see those?
They started with misinformation to the people,
telling them Bitcoin was bad,
and, you know, you shouldn't use that currency
because it's invisible. You cannot see it!
-(laughter) -Yeah, exactly.
They are all full of bullshit.
Hoback: The president was betting
that other countries would want in on the game,
would reject the hegemony of the US dollar.
Who was behind this effort?
So, we talked with my friend Samson. Where is he?
-(cheering) -Samson?
So, this is going to make El Salvador
the financial center of the world.
This is the beginning of, uh, nation-state Bitcoin FOMO.
Do you guys like that?
(crowd cheering)
Hoback: The guy on stage with the president
clearly had something to do with it.
So, I reached out.
-Hello, we're going on a helicopter. -speaker: That's right. Hello.
Hoback: Samson worked for a company that was trying to expand
Bitcoin's reach around the globe.
He considered himself a kind of
diplomatic ambassador for Bitcoin.
And the president was treating him like one.
-(helicopter whirring) -Samson was busy
trying to convince Mexico's third richest man,
known as Uncle Richi,
to use his power plant to mine Bitcoin.
Because, you know,
who wants to just be third richest?
(Ricardo Salinas speaking English)
(Samson Mow speaking English)
(Salinas speaking)
Hoback: Like myself, investors also had questions
when it came to Satoshi, Bitcoin's anonymous creator.
It was the elephant in the helicopter, so to speak.
-They're gone. -They're gone.
Yep.
Hoback: Just before the launch of Bitcoin,
there was a digital currency backed by actual gold,
which was reportedly processing $2 billion
in transactions every year.
E-gold is a currency
that's currently pretty popularized
with a lot of online users.
Hoback: They promised that e-gold would be here this year,
next year, 1,000 years from now.
But, it seems the US government
didn't give a shit what their website said.
They arrested its creator and shut it down.
The takeaway?
If you're going to create a digital currency
that will compete with the US dollar,
you might wanna be really careful
about letting people know who you are.
And because Satoshi disappeared and never cashed out,
I figured maybe their identity should stay a secret.
-(propeller plane whirring) -After all,
it's not like they had some master plan for Bitcoin
to replace the US dollar and render them
the richest person on Earth. Right?
(quirky music playing)
Satoshi understood the game theory of it all.
If Bitcoin was successful,
they'd go after him.
(Hoback speaking)
I don't think he would've created this gift for the world
just to keep it as a threat over the future.
He was more thinking for the good of humanity.
Money is very broken.
It's just a house of cards built on top of more houses of cards
on more houses of cards.
It's all gonna come crashing down.
And when it does, that's when hyperbitcoinization kicks in.
(Hoback speaking)
Samson Mow: Hyperbitcoinization is just,
you can earn Bitcoin, spend Bitcoin,
save in Bitcoin, and the dollar is irrelevant.
Hoback: There are a handful of countries
that had printed their way into hyperinflation,
where money becomes worth less than the paper it's printed on.
But, that could never happen to the US dollar.
Could it?
-(tense music playing) -(crowd chatter)
reporter 1: Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt.
reporter 2: Customers are freaked out,
waiting to see how low the Dow will go.
Hoback: Back in 2008, the world came really close
to figuring out that our entire economic system
was held together with chewing gum and duct tape.
reporter: The President's plan would allow the Treasury
to buy up to $700 billion worth of bad loans.
Hoback: Trust in financial institutions was hard to find.
I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments.
-(shutter snapping) -Hoback: The only business that seemed to be booming
involved taking pictures of depressed stockbrokers.
It was during this fiasco that a mysterious programmer,
calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto,
conceived of Bitcoin,
an electronic cash system.
And it was all set in motion on January 3, 2009...
when the first Bitcoin block was born.
It's called the Genesis Block.
And a new block is formed about every 10 minutes,
adding to the record of all the Bitcoin transactions.
It's called a blockchain.
It's like an indestructible mathematical safe,
one that keeps track of who owns what.
And if you want to unlock your Bitcoin,
it'll require your secret key,
which is basically just a fancy password.
Bitcoin now has hundreds of thousands of blocks.
But, in the Genesis Block, Satoshi hid a message.
"Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
Referencing a headline that had appeared in the London "Times"
that same morning.
It was a subtle declaration of war
against the world's financial powers,
which had just printed more than a trillion dollars
to satisfy the recklessness of the big banks.
In apparent opposition,
Satoshi designed Bitcoin with a limited supply.
No one could just print more of it.
Only 21 million total could ever be mined.
It was programmed so that the miners would receive
less and less over time.
Until 2140,
when the digital mine basically runs out,
with Satoshi writing,
"It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint,
"if we can explain it properly.
I'm better with code than with words though."
You know, for Bitcoiners who actually might know
who Satoshi is, if they do,
do you think that they would keep that secret?
(plane whirring)
Well, I would keep the secret.
Adam Back would keep the secret.
Hoback: Samson's boss is a cryptographer
named Adam Back which jumped out at me
because Adam Back
has a pretty important connection to Satoshi.
He was believed to be the first person
Satoshi ever reached out to.
People have pushed Adam to release the Satoshi emails
that Satoshi sent to him.
But, Adam is a very upstanding guy.
His line of thinking is that is a private conversation.
So, he's never released those emails.
I've seen them, and, you know,
they're real.
Hoback: Adam's company is called Blockstream.
They were largely behind this effort in El Salvador.
And now, they were looking to help
more countries adopt Bitcoin.
Which brings Bitcoin closer
to becoming the new global standard.
Which, in turn, could make Satoshi
the richest person on Earth.
It might make you wonder
if Satoshi had any relationship to Blockstream,
assuming Satoshi was still alive.
So, I asked Samson if he could connect me with Adam Back.
-Adam, is your mic on? Can you hear me? -Just wait a minute...
Okay, should be good.
(over video call) I had, you know, a brief interaction,
email interaction, with Satoshi in 2008.
And-And, like, what happened? We don't know.
I mean, is he alive or not? I don't know. Um...
Did he just choose a different pseudonym?
Is he-- he still active?
We don't know that either, I'd say.
Satoshi's wallet, there's this huge sort of chest
that hasn't been tapped.
It seems almost like a, you know, a Bible story,
where nobody really knows quite what happened
because it was so many years ago.
It's hard to be definitive, I guess is my point. (laughs)
Hoback (over video call): So, Adam, are you planning any trips
to El Salvador anytime soon?
Adam Back: I haven't really been traveling that much lately.
Usually in Malta, actually.
We should start with just an interview with you in Malta.
Um...
If that sounds... if that sounds good to you.
Okay.
♪♪
Hoback: When Adam moved to Malta,
Bitcoin was just getting started.
It had no value yet.
So, perhaps it's just a coincidence
that Malta is considered a tax haven.
So, how'd you end up in Malta?
Adam Back: Um, so, in 2009,
I was working for a startup.
I was thinking as a remote worker,
I would try something adventurous,
find somewhere interesting to live.
Hoback: The cryptography behind Bitcoin
is what makes it secure.
It's the "crypto" in cryptocurrency.
And cryptographers, they're like the math wizards
who are skilled at making digital locks.
And to create Bitcoin,
Satoshi referenced ideas from a few of them.
In particular, something that Adam Back had invented,
called Hashcash.
And he dreamed this up 12 years before the creation of Bitcoin.
Were you the first person that Satoshi reached out to?
I believe so, yeah.
He just sent an email, um,
saying that he's about to publish, um, a paper...
Hoback: What would become Satoshi's famous white paper.
...and wants to know the correct way to cite Hashcash.
Did you ever release the emails that you had with Satoshi?
-No. -Was that to protect privacy
'cause they were private emails or what was the reason?
Yeah, kind of convention--
I mean, convention, so-called "netiquette,"
which was a popular term back then, was that
you would not post somebody's emails without permission.
Like, nobody knows how to reach this guy at this point,
so I can't ask, you know?
Hoback: But, we can look into the group of people
Satoshi relied on for inspiration and support.
Namely, the cypherpunks.
-(modem dialing up) -(dramatic music playing)
Back in the day, there was a lot of hope
that this thing called the internet
was going to usher in an era of newfound freedom.
BBC speaker: Imagine a world where every word ever written
could be viewed instantly in your home
via an information superhighway.
Hoback: But, only a few predicted
the surveillance hellscape that lay ahead.
And they could be found on the Cypherpunk Mailing List.
Every cryptographer worth their salt was on it.
Cypherpunks are cryptography activists
who believe in personal privacy for everybody.
Hoback: Which meant in a digital world,
you would need some way to secure your communications.
In the physical world, you had a good degree of privacy.
In the online realm, in principle,
you should enjoy the same rights.
I mean, why should you lose your rights just because
you're using a different communication mechanism?
Hoback: But, the military, and three-letter agencies,
viewed cryptography as a tool of war.
And they didn't want unbreakable security
in the hands of the masses.
The unrestrained public discussion
of cryptographic research
threatened our national security.
Hoback: The cypherpunks waged
a massive battle against the US government.
Back: I was sitting around at university and thinking,
man, this is, this is so ridiculous.
-Hoback: So, Adam, being part punk... -(electric guitar sting)
...created an easily wearable bit of illicit code.
It was just a method of encryption.
Wear the shirt while crossing a border,
and it could be considered weapons trafficking.
-(buzzing) -Back: A few people had tattoos with it on
to, like, you know, to make the argument that,
"Well, can I, can I leave the country now?
I've got this on my arm," kind of thing.
Hoback: And if you've ever used a secure messaging app,
well, you have Adam and his cypherpunk buddies to thank
because they won.
Except one key thing evaded them.
Back: Permissionless electronic cash for the internet.
Hey, this could actually change the world for the better.
Hoback: They understood that in a future
where everything would be tracked and traced,
you needed untraceable digital cash.
The holy grail was to find a solution to this problem.
Hoback: And we're not talking about
a digital representation of money
like when you use a bank or credit card.
-(buzzing) -We're talking entirely decentralized,
-totally secure, fully autonomous currencies -(whooshing)
spread across the globe that no one could control or shut down.
It all needed to work without putting trust in a bank,
a government, or some big corporation.
I want to tell you how PayPal stole my money
and my girlfriend.
Hoback: Over the years, a few key cypherpunks
took stabs at trying to make this work.
It was deemed impossible.
But then, somehow, Satoshi showed up and figured it out.
Back: You know, you talk to a lot of technical people,
and they will say of Bitcoin, "I could have done that."
I say it's actually much harder than it looks. (laughs)
I'm just trying to imagine, like,
who would've been working around the clock
to introduce something like Bitcoin...?
So, it could be somebody that was on the cypherpunks list
that nobody knew the real name of.
Or it could be somebody younger.
-(plucky music playing) -(foreboding rumble)
Rachel-Rose O'Leary: I think the question,
"Who was Satoshi?" always kind of creeps in.
It's hard to avoid that question.
But, I've been told it was a secret
which was known, but that was closely guarded.
That there were people in Bitcoin
who knew who Satoshi is,
but that they wouldn't reveal it.
Um, and that maybe Satoshi was a group of people
that is, like, still active in Bitcoin today.
Hoback: Rachel-Rose was a journalist for CoinDesk.
It's one of the most popular media outlets
covering the whole crypto space.
Since leaving CoinDesk,
she'd become a crypto-anarchist,
-which is about using subversive technology... -(laughs)
...to dodge government control.
O'Leary: I was hoping you might have the time
to interview Amir while you're here.
He's, uh, one of the first five developers
to talk with Satoshi.
-Hoback: Where is he in Switzerland? -He's downstairs.
-Hoback: Oh, he's here? Oh, he lives with you! -(laughing)
Who just happened to be her boyfriend.
Good to meet you.
Amir Taaki is a British-Iranian anarchist revolutionary
and one of the earliest programmers
who worked on Bitcoin after Satoshi handed it off.
(speaking English)
Hoback: In terms of the "Fuck the man,
burn down the system" roots of Bitcoin,
this guy is about as real as it gets.
Should I call it...
Drug Market Ultra
or Death Market Revive?
These days, the Bitcoiners,
they don't really talk about me anymore.
I'm no longer "in" with the Bitcoin crowd.
But, part of it is because,
uh, I went to fight in Syria.
(ominous music playing)
And I was like-- I was out of crypto for two years.
There's a few photos of him with Kalashnikov,
and it's like, "Bitcoiner Fights ISIS in Syria."
Amir Taaki: It was more like three years,
because I was under house arrest for one year as well.
Hoback: Oh wow. For what?
Investigation of terrorism.
Hoback: How did you get involved with Bitcoin?
I remember when I first got into Bitcoin in 2010.
(dramatic music playing)
I started to, like, delve a bit deeper,
started to look at the code.
The code itself was very bad,
didn't seem like the guy who had wrote it
was a professional developer.
But, it wasn't nothing either.
Conceptually, it was, it was a leap.
It was interesting.
Hoback: Was Satoshi communicating with you
in the early days at all?
Just on the forums.
Hoback: Satoshi created the Bitcoin Talk forum,
where early enthusiasts could interact with Satoshi
who wrote 575 total posts.
-(mouse wheel scrolling) -Their posts usually had a kind of bland academic style.
Unless something got under Satoshi's skin.
Which Amir succeeded at.
Taaki: When I posted about WikiLeaks...
Hoback: WikiLeaks, an online collective
known for publishing state secrets,
had become the target of the state.
The US government pressured Visa, MasterCard,
PayPal to block all donations
and freeze their funds.
So, Amir suggested they start accepting donations in Bitcoin.
"PC World" picked up the story.
Satoshi was afraid this rapid adoption by WikiLeaks
would attract the wrong kind of attention
from three-letter agencies.
One of my favorite quotes,
"WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest,
and the swarm is headed towards us."
That's one theory for Satoshi's departure.
Hoback: The very next day,
that's when Satoshi made their last post on the forum.
But, Satoshi quietly continued communication
with a select few people,
primarily with a guy named Gavin Andresen,
who had been an early contributor to Bitcoin.
I was kind of looking around
for an interesting open source software project
to contribute to and stumbled across Bitcoin,
and then got sucked in.
Satoshi, when he left,
he distributed control
amongst different people in the community.
Hoback: Now, Gavin represented
a very different type of Bitcoiner than Amir.
He wanted to work with the state, not against it.
He's a normie. Like a boomer-normie.
Hoback: But, normalizing Bitcoin appeared to be Satoshi's goal.
And Gavin looked like he was from an L.L.Bean catalog.
Every time I tried to make a change to Bitcoin,
he tried to reject it. I was like, dude, fuck off!
Hoback: On the Bitcoin website,
Satoshi even replaced their own email with Gavin's,
seemingly rendering him the spokesperson.
So, I-I took over from the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.
Hoback: But, Satoshi became annoyed with Gavin's PR efforts
rather quickly, writing,
"I wish you wouldn't keep talking about me
"as a mysterious shadowy figure.
The press just turns that into a pirate currency angle."
Then, Gavin did something that mortified early Bitcoiners,
prompting Satoshi to permanently cut ties.
My last email to him was telling him that I had
agreed to go visit the folks at the CIA.
♪♪
Taaki: Gavin Andresen announced
that he was visiting the CIA to present Bitcoin.
Everybody was absolutely shocked.
Like, dude, what are you doing?
And after that, Satoshi just disappeared.
Nobody heard from him again.
Hoback: Which was good timing
because Bitcoin was about to find its first real-use case:
buying drugs.
YouTuber: Something special came in the mail
just today from Silk Road.
reporter: Imagine logging on to an Amazon-like marketplace,
only instead of household items and shoes,
you can buy heroin, meth,
and pretty much any other drug you can think of.
"Many thanks and much love."
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are some, uh,
people interested in drugs, let's say,
who ended up being relatively wealthy.
Hoback: While this sent Bitcoin's value skyrocketing,
its reputation was easy pickings.
It's untraceable, and that makes me think
that the real purpose of Bitcoin is to use it for drugs
or to buy weapons illegally.
Hoback: Although anarchists like Amir were loving it,
the emerging generation of corporate Bitcoiners
wanted to improve its image, give Bitcoin a friendlier face.
reporter: Bitcoin Jesus himself joins us on the phone.
-Roger, great to have you back. -Roger Ver (on phone): Hello, everyone.
Thank you for having me again.
Hoback: Roger Ver put millions of dollars
into some of the first Bitcoin startups,
eventually rendering him a billionaire.
But, when Roger first heard about Bitcoin,
he had what's best described
as a near-religious experience.
Got so excited about Bitcoin and didn't sleep for a week
and literally had to be taken to the hospital,
and they gave me a sedative.
Anybody here that's sick of the government
inflating the money supply
to pay to kill people all around the world?
Stop using their money!
This was like a dream come true for me.
The-The thing I've been waiting almost my entire life
finally arrived, and so, of course,
I was gonna be busy promoting that.
Hoback: Like a prophet, Roger spread Bitcoin
to anyone he met, earning him the title
of Bitcoin Jesus.
(speaking Japanese)
I think the world would just plain work better
and be better for everybody if there wasn't a ruling class
called the government. Uh...
But, I don't want chaos. I want order
and things to work smoothly and people to deal with each other
on a voluntary basis to make the world a more orderly,
prosperous place for everybody.
(speaking English)
(dramatic music playing)
Hoback: Nouriel Roubini is a famous economist,
best known for predicting the 2008 financial collapse,
earning him the nickname Dr. Doom.
I'm a pain for them
because I'm public enemy number one of crypto.
YouTuber: Nouriel Roubini. He can either be
the world's biggest crypto troll
or an idiot.
Hoback: He's also known for throwing wild hot tub parties,
where he looks to have "10 girls to every one guy."
You know, I usually say that I'm not, uh, "Dr. Doom,"
I'm Dr. Realist.
Honestly, I believe that crypto, even blockchain,
is the biggest fad in financial history.
In crypto, somebody steals your private key,
your money is gone, your wealth is gone forever,
for good. It disappears.
reporter: This guy is out
of $225 million.
Bitcoiner: Seven and a half thousand bitcoins
on a hard drive that I'd thrown out.
If somebody steals my credit card
or gets my bank deposit,
literally, I make a phone call,
and I'm made 100% whole on that.
We have reasons why
we can monitor financial transactions.
Some government may abuse it,
but there is no civilized country in the world,
or government, is gonna allow crypto.
There will be a crackdown,
and it's all gonna disappear.
This is about undermining the Federal Reserve.
This is about dis-intermediating the nation-state.
Satoshi, whoever he or she was,
maybe was an idealist.
Maybe he really cared about protecting people
from excessive abuse of power and so on.
The ideological origins
of cryptocurrency, of Bitcoin, of Satoshi himself,
unequivocally anti nation-state
and pro human freedom.
Hoback: But, they had a problem.
While Satoshi understood that Bitcoin
wasn't actually anonymous, just about everyone else...
They didn't realize it was traceable.
It wasn't until there was analysis done,
cryptographers looking into it started to see, actually,
there's links.
There's like a trail on the blockchain
that we can actually map.
Hoback: So, if someone who stole
a bunch of Bitcoin tries to cash out,
you can see that their Bitcoin wallet
contains the stolen funds.
-(pop, yelling, banging) -Which is how people doing illegal shit got caught.
Today, the FBI successfully seized
criminal proceeds from a Bitcoin wallet.
♪♪
Hoback: So, Amir gathered some hackers together
in a sketchy squad
to try and solve Bitcoin's privacy problem.
They hired a young kid as their lead programmer.
His name was Peter Todd.
Peter Todd was living with us.
You know, that's how I got to know him.
We put Peter Todd as the chief scientist of our project
to put him in opposition to Gavin Andresen.
♪♪
You know, we're sitting in a freezing cold room
because it's an abandoned building with no heat.
And it's very unique.
But, equally though,
you get people who know what they're talking about.
You need to give people space to actually work on these issues.
-(birds chirping) -(intriguing music playing)
Hoback: Nine years later,
Peter was still trying to solve these issues.
Peter Todd: There's a lot of people who would like to see cash go away
and like see your ability to transact anonymously disappear.
I mean, this, this is a very dangerous thing.
This needs to be treated as a human rights issue.
Hoback: How'd you get into caving?
Todd: There was something called the Toronto Caving Group.
Didn't really pick the best place to live for good caves.
Here, you can actually see, uh,
stalactites and stalagmites sort of forming a column.
So, you know this thing hasn't moved for probably 30, 40 years.
It's unlikely it'll collapse on our heads,
but one day, it will. (sighs)
Hoback: Tell me about your endeavors
to try to make a digital currency yourself.
Well, you know,
in, like, the mid-2000s,
I was off getting a fine arts degree.
Started working halftime, like, 2007, full-time in 2008,
and I finally kinda finished it in sort of 2009,
and then went on to start doing physics.
Hoback: So, have people suspected you of being Satoshi at any point?
(Peter Todd speaking)
Hoback: Why do they, uh, think you're behind it?
(Todd speaking)
Hoback: It was back in 2001,
when Peter Todd, a self-taught coder,
first contacted Adam Back.
He was only 15 at the time,
and, like some sort of savant,
he already had a deep understanding of digital cash.
You almost learned how to code before you learned how to read.
Yep.
That's wild.
The logic of coding seemed pretty obvious to me.
Were you just interested in those issues in high school?
Todd: I happened to be a young libertarian,
and it was pretty obvious to me that
control of money is a very big problem
for freedom of speech.
We should find a way to have decentralized banking.
Hoback: Over the years, Peter became
an increasingly controversial figure.
The war on cash is the thing that has to be stopped.
And, frankly, everyone in this audience,
if you don't use cash to go pay regularly,
I don't, I don't respect you as a Bitcoiner.
Like, that's just a fact.
If you're using credit every single day, fuck you.
(applause)
Hoback: Let's just say his takes weren't always appreciated.
Todd: One day, Bitcoin will go to zero.
You know, it will eventually fail,
like everything else.
Peter will always try to disagree with you.
He's the contrarian of contrarians.
Todd: You know, the people who really know...
know how this stuff works, I think realize
that anyone competent enough to go do Bitcoin
probably would be competent enough to not leave any traces.
Hoback: I mean, Satoshi left a lot of digital history.
Todd: Yeah, but digital history doesn't mean much, you know?
Doesn't necessarily give you any insight into who they were.
♪♪
Remember, things that look like mistakes
can be intentionally misleading.
If I were Satoshi, I would have destroyed my ability
to go prove I was Satoshi.
Because then, you'd never be tempted.
Hoback: But, uh, you're-you're not Satoshi?
Oh, no, I am Satoshi.
-I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. -(Hoback laughs)
-Hoback: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all Satoshi. -Todd: Yep.
(intriguing music playing)
-(church bell ringing) -Todd: It's a monkey, I guess.
-Back: Yep. -Could be better.
Hoback: How'd you guys meet?
Online first.
I got more actively interested in Bitcoin in 2013.
Had the feeling that I don't understand how this works.
There are people developing it,
maybe I can find out where they hang out.
Hoback: So, still trying to understand how Bitcoin works,
Adam heads over to the forum
and, for the first time ever, makes some posts.
A lot of posts.
Trying to prove his relevance
and his apparent ignorance.
I was a guy who had a fine arts degree.
Yet, you know, I still understood the system better than he did.
Hoback: So, to clear things up, Adam started a thread,
"Who is this annoying Adam Back guy?"
Of course, the Bitcoiners knew who he was.
I knew who you were. I knew you invented Hashcash.
And here you pop up, and you were clueless.
Hoback: And they just thought he was, well, pretending.
Best evidence of him being Satoshi.
-Back: Of not being Satoshi. -Todd: Being Satoshi.
-Uh-- -Only Satoshi would go to such great lengths
to go and make sure no one thought they were Satoshi.
By the way, everyone's Satoshi.
Yeah, except for me. I'm not Satoshi. (laughs)
Hoback: But the most suspicious thing
was the timing of his appearance on the forums.
The same day Adam registered,
a researcher discovered a bug in Bitcoin's code.
It enabled them to see how much Satoshi had mined.
-About a million Bitcoin. -(whooshing)
Adam seemed concerned, writing,
"Perhaps we're forced to protect him."
And he had a plan.
And I had a potential way to improve Bitcoin's privacy...
Hoback: He wanted to make Bitcoin truly anonymous.
Which would also mean Satoshi could spend their stash
without anyone knowing.
Back: So, I talked to developers
about how do-- how do you achieve this.
Hoback: And Adam's coming-out party on the forums
positioned him so that within a year,
he could start Blockstream.
Because Bitcoin's problems,
they just couldn't be solved in a squad,
like what Peter and Amir had attempted a year earlier.
It required serious funding.
Back: It's a big undertaking.
So, it'd need a company,
it needs to employ lots of people.
Hoback: Blockstream could do what Satoshi couldn't.
Raise money, build a huge team,
and solve Bitcoin's technical problems.
You could say Blockstream is a kind of corporate Satoshi?
-Mm-hmm. -Like, how did he become the head of the company
that became the stewards of Bitcoin?
Uh, it's a good question.
He kind of, uh, shows up and very quickly
becomes integrated into the Bitcoin community.
Hoback: Where he knew to pursue the right kind of talent.
So, Adam, when you started Blockstream,
did you try to get Peter on board?
-Well, kinda intentionally not. -Yeah.
We talked about saying it would actually be much better
-if I didn't work for Blockstream. -Back: Mm-hmm.
'Cause it's better if Blockstream doesn't have everyone.
♪♪
Hoback: While Peter Todd decided not to work at Blockstream,
his friend Greg Maxwell did.
We're building infrastructure
that Bitcoin needs going forward.
Hoback: In fact, Greg founded the company with Adam.
O'Leary: People like Greg Maxwell,
they were considered the, the thought leaders.
Hoback: Greg doesn't do interviews anymore, right?
Getting him to come out of his, uh, home is, uh...
Hoback: ...seemingly off the table, with Greg writing to me,
"I'm pretty exhausted from years of harassment
"driven by conspiracy theories.
I feel like I've given enough."
So, do you think they were working with Satoshi?
It was very mysterious. Uh, th-there is the question
of whether Adam Back is Satoshi.
Hoback: There's been a lot of debate
over which of these cypherpunks is most likely to be Satoshi.
Hal Finney received the first Bitcoin transaction,
but he died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2014.
Well, sort of.
His head is frozen.
So, if he's Satoshi,
you'd probably have to solve cryonics
to get the key that's stored in his head.
But, there were some problems with this theory.
Satoshi's code bears zero resemblance to Hal Finney's.
-(shutter snaps) -And Hal was photographed in a 10-mile race,
while Satoshi was actively emailing with someone.
In 2015, The New York Times pointed to Nick Szabo,
a reclusive cypherpunk who envisioned something
pretty similar to Bitcoin.
Would you ever be open to, to doing,
like, an interview on camera about all of that?
The key piece of evidence,
he changed the date of a blog entry,
presumably so it would seem like he came up
with this idea after Bitcoin.
Thing is, he'd actually announced months earlier
that he'd be doing reruns of his blog favorite entries,
making this piece of evidence look a lot less suspicious.
(speaking English)
-(Hoback laughs) -(room chatter)
Hoback: There's Wei Dai, who is a famous cryptographer.
He claims there are no real photos of him on the internet.
But, he did speculate that Satoshi
must have been someone with energy and time
that isn't obligated to publish papers under their real name.
There's Len Sassaman, David Chaum, Dorian Nakamoto...
-(names overlapping, echoing over each other) -(mouse clicking)
The list goes on and on.
I am Satoshi!
Okay!
The biggest critic of crypto is Satoshi himself.
Hoback: And while we could pick apart each of these theories,
the evidence pointing in Adam's direction
was a lot harder to poke holes in.
So, we're gonna focus on that.
Though for a long time, people hadn't really
considered him a suspect. And that's because
he wasn't just cited in the white paper.
He was the only person called out by name in the body of it.
But, was Satoshi simply hiding in plain sight?
-(arrow slams) -Back: I've never done it before, so...
-Okay. It's 99%. -(laughs) It's just one-- Just this one hand, right?
Hoback: You see, like Satoshi,
he writes in a typically measured style
with similar spelling choices.
Now, Adam also claims that he didn't really get involved
until four years after the launch of Bitcoin.
In 2013, I felt like, you know,
the embarrassing late guy,
given that I should've known better at the beginning, right?
(laughs) And, uh...
Hoback: Thing is,
back in 2011,
you can see he was on a mailing list,
openly defending Bitcoin,
and sharing complex insights into Bitcoin's expansion.
Weirder still, in 2012,
he began making revisions to Bitcoin's Wikipedia page,
eventually restoring the section about Satoshi...
Just, like, tried to right a slight historical wrong there.
-Hoback: ...even adding possible suspects. -(shoots)
Just leaving out his own name.
(shoots arrow)
How much is Satoshi worth these days?
I don't know. Um, I mean, even the number of coins
that he might have is a bit speculative.
If they had a million coins,
whoever Satoshi is would technically have
a huge amount of influence if it becomes the,
-the new global currency, right? -Back: Right.
Hoback: That would mean that whoever Satoshi is
might be one of the most powerful people in the world.
♪♪
Even the slightest suggestion
that Satoshi had access to their coins
had the power to tumble markets.
Market fear has begun to overtake rationality.
Hoback: But selling a million coins all at once?
If these coins were dumped...
Hoback: That could kill Bitcoin.
-(zaps) -And as the stakes grew,
it kinda mattered if Satoshi still had access.
If you were Satoshi, where would you store
your private key to the, uh, trove?
I don't know. That's a lot of bitcoins, isn't it?
(Hoback laughs)
Hoback: What do you think Satoshi might've done with that key?
I don't know. I mean,
some people speculate that he might've deleted them.
But, of course, we don't know-- we wouldn't know, right?
Hoback: But, we could've known.
You see, there's a way
to verifiably destroy your bitcoins.
It's called burning the coins,
and it's done in a public way for all to see...
-(bursting) -...on the blockchain.
♪♪
Bitcoiner: You could burn all the coins
because that would remove the small uncertainty that exists.
-Hoback: But, Satoshi didn't do this. -(whooshing)
Meaning they very well might still have access.
If they kept that stuff, there'd be a lot of temptation
to spend some of it.
Hoback: So, Satoshi had to weigh the temptation
of becoming the richest person on Earth
against the possibility
that it would derail their invention.
Do you think it'll ever be known who Satoshi is?
Back: I don't think so, no.
I mean, just-just because all of the people
that have been identified
have various reasons, believable reasons,
why it's probably not them.
And you know what the list is, right?
-It's been circulated a million times. -Right. Right.
Hoback: Wei Dai is on the list.
Um, Nick Szabo is on the list. Hal Finney.
You're on the list. And then,
maybe mysterious... mysterious other person.
-Right. -Um...
Well, I thought you might think I'm Satoshi,
and I don't want that to be on the record, really.
(both laugh)
-I mean, you're on the list of suspects, right? -Yeah, yeah,
but, uh, you know,
I was interested for you, personally, to understand
that really-really, I'm not, you know? Yeah.
-(breeze blowing) -(birds chirping)
Hoback: It seemed to me that, at a minimum,
Adam was more involved than he was letting on.
(intriguing music playing)
Meanwhile, Blockstream's Bitcoin ambassador
was trying to make Bitcoin the new global standard.
Mow: This is a pivotal time with Bitcoin,
and we have to push the advantage we have now.
I have an in in Korea, but if you wanna do Vietnam...
Michelle Phan: Wow... Yeah!
-Fist bump... I'm down. -Are you down? Okay!
Alright, I'm down, too.
Hoback: Samson's young new ally just happened to be
one of YouTube's biggest beauty influencers.
Now, she was advising on more than just makeup.
With Bitcoin, you can buy it in smaller units.
There's 100 million satoshis in one bitcoin.
Nothing ever infinitely goes up,
but Bitcoin will.
I feel like California should become its own country
and adopt Bitcoin. In my humble opinion.
It's like, what, the fourth largest GDP right, in the world?
Yeah.
Hoback: They were headed to a political function
for Andrew Yang...
Andrew Yang: I'm Andrew Yang,
and I'm running for president as a Democrat in 2020.
Hoback: ...who kinda brought the idea of universal basic income
into the mainstream.
-So, we gotta talk to Andrew about UBI. Your UBI! -Yeah.
Yes, the universal Bitcoin income.
Not universal basic income. We don't want basic shit.
-We want Bitcoin. -Yeah, we're not basic.
Thank you. Okay, here we are.
Hoback: So, these two, they're what's known as
Bitcoin maximalists, or Maxi for short.
I'm a proud Bitcoin Maxi now.
I'm toxic as fuck.
-(thunder cracks) -Hoback: Does their profile pic
have lasers coming out of their eyes?
Usually means they're a Maxi.
It was a system of monetary belief.
Welcome to the new religion.
Hoback: Faith that Bitcoin could fix all the problems in the world.
Bitcoin fixes everything!
Hoback: And that the US dollar was on its way out.
Okay, here's a $10 bill.
-This is garbage. This is garbage. -(ripping)
Hoback: Which could be pretty fucking annoying.
But, ultimately, their goal was to orange pill the world.
Phan: We're gonna try and orange pill him.
Yang: Oh my gosh! Hey, Michelle!
We have a real life Asian-American supermodel and activist.
Hoback: Their tactics could be pretty shameless.
-Andrew, nice to meet you. -Oh, nice to meet you, too.
This guy's changing the world. I want you to meet him.
I think he's really important for you to talk to.
Oh, no, I'm super pumped about this. See this magic?
You see this magic in real time? You wanna say a couple words?
Bitcoin is the most important crypto out there.
Yang: Holy cow!
-Let's talk, uh, more deeply. -Mow: Yeah!
What's your info? What's the best way to be in touch?
Many of these utopian movements start by a bunch of idealists.
But then, they're captured by a bunch of greedy people,
they become a cult,
and the people and the system becomes like a religion.
They become fanatic.
And then, all these utopias, in due time,
they just disappear in the dustbin of history.
And that's what's gonna happen with crypto.
♪♪
Hoback: Samson thought he could use his own right hand.
Someone with connections.
Enter the Prince of Serbia.
Prince Philip: 2020, that's when it really clicked.
There are synergies between Bitcoin and monarchies.
-I'm a Maxi now. -(laughter, indistinct chatter)
That's my great-grandfather.
This is my great- great-grandfather.
Hoback: I see. When do you get your painting in here?
-Who knows? -(laughter)
He has the perfect skill set
to contact, uh, diplomats, presidents.
There's a lot of big family network
to-to-to work through. That opens a lot of doors.
Hoback: Not that long ago,
Montenegro and Serbia used to be part of the same country.
And Prince Philip's family still had a lot of influence.
Prince Philip: Prime Minister Spaji.
In terms of where he's at with Bitcoin,
could be the start of a good relationship with him
to get things moving in this country.
I'm a big fan of Bitcoin, obviously,
and of the technology that Bitcoin brought.
Politically, it's, it's a difficult sell.
You have to think about all kinds of risks.
I think the government shouldn't invest in Bitcoin.
If you're risk-averse, you think the government
should not hold it. That's fine.
But, in the event that fiat currencies collapse,
everyone will rush into Bitcoin. So, what we're trying to do
is get parallel systems in place.
Dollars, Bitcoin, pesos, Bitcoin, yen, Bitcoin.
We don't have our own currency.
We're using euros without being able to print euros.
And that's not fair. You know, that's not cool.
Maybe something to consider
is adopting Bitcoin as simply money.
You don't need to tax anybody.
-You can just mine Bitcoin... -Prince Philip: Yes.
...and that will fund everything.
The electricity is relatively cheap.
It's usually the smaller countries
that are more agile and willing to embrace change
'cause they're looking for some advantage.
I think it's a good idea.
You can really be a beacon in Europe right now.
Concretely, how do we do this?
Mow: We had a really good talk about Bitcoin adoption
and what they can do. And they also, like Costa Rica,
have a lot of hydropower,
-so we're making progress everywhere. -(breaking up phone reply)
Hoback: How did something with such anarchistic roots
end up being mined by countries?
narrator 1: It all started in 1849.
There was gold in California.
Hoback: In the beginning,
if you wanted to do Bitcoin mining,
your home computer was good enough.
Which is how Satoshi racked up
-what appears to be over a million Bitcoin. -(swirling)
But, once Bitcoin had value...
narrator 1: Within a short time,
all had caught the fever that only gold would quench.
Hoback: ...people created specialized mining rigs
to increase their chances of winning.
narrator 1: Which made the job move faster.
Hoback: The more people who compete, the harder it gets.
narrator 1: As the gold became more difficult to find...
Hoback: Mining industrialized, becoming an arms race.
narrator 2: It was buckets, after buckets, after buckets.
Hoback: Looking for the cheapest energy, the fastest miners,
in search of the next golden ticket.
reporter: Bitcoin mines generated about $70,000 a day.
Hoback: And if you can't keep up, it stops being profitable.
narrator 1: As the gold gave out, people moved away.
Hoback: Until most of the players left in the game
are basically billionaires who own their own power plants,
or countries who own the power grid.
It's the grand unveiling.
I think there's a couple hundred in here.
It's a 40-foot container.
Hoback: Requiring about 0.5% of all the energy.
And it requires increasing amounts of energy consumption
as more miners compete.
Hoback: And while you might think that's pretty terrible...
-(fire crackling) -...compounding a climate catastrophe,
if you've ever heard of petrodollars,
that's because Nixon ditched the gold standard
and intertwined the US dollar with the oil trade.
The effect of this action, in other words,
will be to stabilize the dollar.
Hoback: Which helped solidify the dollar's status
as the global reserve currency,
but kinda kept us dependent on oil.
So, maybe it's just the nature of money
that it's based on things that people value.
Which is to say, a currency derived from electricity
might pose a real threat to the dollar
if it gained in popularity.
Assuming it actually worked.
♪♪
You see, Bitcoin's original design had a fatal flaw.
reporter 1: Well, computer giant Dell announcing today
-it will accept Bitcoin. -reporter 2: Sacramento Kings to accept Bitcoin.
Overstock is now accepting Bitcoin.
Hoback: If too many people started using Bitcoin,
it would stop working.
And that's because those blocks
that make up Bitcoin's record keeping system,
-they just can't hold very much information. -(whooshing)
They're small. And you have to wait
10 minutes before another block forms.
So, when Bitcoin got popular,
your transaction would be stuck
in line for hours, sometimes days.
And since money needs to work immediately,
this was a disaster.
Transaction times are incredibly high.
There's a lot of people questioning long-term sustainability.
Stripe is getting out of the Bitcoin business.
Hoback: So Gavin, who was still kind of
steering the Bitcoin ship, announced...
We'll definitely need to increase
the maximum block size.
-Hoback: In other words, make each block bigger. -(whirs)
More room for all the transactions.
But, not everyone agreed.
This is obviously a bad idea.
Oh, this is all bullshit.
These guys are bringing about the doom of Bitcoin.
Hoback: A disagreement which resulted in a massive nerd fight,
known as the Blocksize War.
So, why were they being so apocalyptic
about just adding more space to each Bitcoin block?
The nerds had some good reasons.
For instance, if you could change something
as fundamental as the block size,
could you also change the total supply
from 21 million to 100?
People might lose their faith in what makes Bitcoin Bitcoin.
Although, to make a change like this,
you have to get pretty much everyone on board.
-Otherwise, the community will split. -(horn blaring)
So, instead of changing Bitcoin,
the Small Blockers had a complex technical solution,
but it would take years. Meanwhile,
the Big Blockers wanted Bitcoin to work now,
not in some theoretical future.
Ver: Governments move slowly. We need to move quickly
and make this cash for the entire world
before the politicians even know what happened
and they have time to react via bigger blocks.
Hoback: The fight became vicious, with each side
accusing the other of trying to destroy Bitcoin.
Ver: I'm not exaggerating, this is a life and death matter.
More babies are dying in countries around the world
because they have less economic freedom.
Mow: He's not Bitcoin Jesus.
He's Bitcoin Judas.
(buzzer blares)
He's the one that's trying to kill Bitcoin.
Hoback: With Bitcoin essentially divided
between the church of small blocks
and the church and big blocks,
you might be wondering
where did Satoshi fall in all of this?
I think Satoshi handed the keys off to Gavin
because he viewed Gavin as a responsible steward
of the future of the project.
But, that doesn't mean you're the leader.
That just means you're the guy who answers questions.
Hoback: Well, it seemed Satoshi
was about to make their views known.
After years of silence,
Satoshi sends an email out to the mailing list
to share their concerns.
It's from the same address Satoshi used back in 2008.
The one to distribute the white paper.
His words were clear, harsh...
and firmly against Roger, Gavin,
and the big corporations.
There's a debate around whether or not
that was, like, legitimate.
But, whoever had access to Satoshi's email
was somewhat aligned with Blockstream,
with their angle on the scaling debate.
Hoback: While some question the email's authenticity,
it placed Satoshi squarely on Blockstream's side.
-(curious music playing) -(blade slicing)
And then, as if sent from digital heaven,
Satoshi appeared in the flesh.
He was apparently an Australian fellow...
named Craig Wright.
So, you're gonna show me that Satoshi Nakamoto is you?
♪♪
Yes.
I do think Craig is Satoshi.
I met with him in London.
Uh, he fits the kind of person
that I was interacting with way back in 2010,
and he provided some cryptographic proof.
Hoback: Miraculously, this Satoshi
was on Gavin and Roger's side.
At first, it seemed wonderful because, oh,
Satoshi's back, and he's a Big Blocker.
Raise the block size.
Very quickly, people figured out
this is obviously bullshit.
Hoback: It seems like he'd fake the evidence
by backdating his cryptographic proof.
Craig Wright is incredibly convincing.
For me, he's proved it
beyond a reasonable doubt.
But, if you dig deep enough, long enough,
the inconsistencies will emerge.
Yeah, I-I have to be careful about talking about that topic
because he, uh, sued me at some point.
-Hoback: Who did? -Craig.
-He sued-- -Hoback: For what?
For libel. He sued a lot of people.
Hoback: (laughs) Well, that's something to look forward to.
(slow music playing)
To me, Craig Wright was the death blow in the war.
"Death blow" is a strong word, but something close to that.
Thanks, Craig. (scoffs)
Todd: We got lucky.
The Blocksize War went the right way.
Hoback: The Blocksize War was over,
and the Small Blockers had won.
-(laughs) The victor writes history. -Mow: (laughs) Yeah.
O'Leary: They established themselves as
the ideological authority on Bitcoin.
Hoback: But, had Satoshi simply regained control?
It took the Small Blockers almost a decade
to make their plan work.
None of that Starbucks bullshit!
Hoback: You could buy coffee with Bitcoin,
which is why countries were now able to adopt it.
But, it required the support of companies like Blockstream.
-Cheers. You're not supposed to cheers coffee. -(cups clink)
Hoback: And these companies would take a small cut
out of every transaction. Meaning it ain't...
Back: Permissionless electronic cash for the internet.
Hoback: Which fueled theories that they had ulterior motives.
It's been delayed by at least a decade, if not more,
because of this, uh, block size limit that was imposed,
and probably covert government agents helping it along.
-Hoback: Yeah, so I guess we'll just go-- -Peter Todd. (laughs)
Sorry, what was that?
I said Peter Todd, for one. (laughs)
Hoback: Wait. Roger thought Peter Todd was working for the government?
(tense music playing)
Hoback: What-What indication did you have
that he was,
perhaps, collaborating with the government?
The things he was advocating that should happen with Bitcoin
were counterproductive to Bitcoin being usable
as cash and usable as money.
(typing)
Hoback: Prior to 2013,
pretty much all of Peter Todd's history
appears to be wiped from the internet.
I finally found his personal website.
2001...
Where, in high school,
when he was communicating with the cypherpunks,
he joked that in the event
he becomes an evil dictator who takes over the world,
he was screwed up from childhood.
His father was an economist,
and his mother taught him about encryption.
And while Peter Todd might have worked for...
A company manufacturing gyroscopes
for drones in the military.
Hoback: ...being in the CIA obviously wasn't on his resume.
Or whatever the fuck Canada's intelligence agency's called.
But, Roger brought up something suspicious.
Later, somebody leaked this email exchange from him,
and that guy openly claimed
that he was working for the US government.
Anybody who looks on Google
and searches, "Peter Todd leaked emails" will see...
Hoback: Back in 2013, there was this email thread
that had been leaked between Peter Todd
and a guy who called himself John Dillon.
Taaki: And in the emails,
Peter Todd was conspiring with this other guy
who was affiliated with state actors.
Hoback: With John Dillon claiming,
"My day job involves intelligence,
and I'm in a relatively high position."
Maybe Amir just wasn't aware of this at the time.
If it looks like something's coming into existence
that could replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency,
the US government and its three-letter agencies
absolutely, without any doubt, will do whatever they can,
including secretly and covertly disrupting projects
like Bitcoin.
Hoback: If the government wanted to undermine Bitcoin,
or try to get close to Satoshi, how might they do it?
A guy that openly said that he was working for a three-letter agency
literally paid Peter Todd
to implement what's called replace-by-fee.
Hoback: John Dillon offered a strangely small $500 reward
for anyone who could design replace-by-fee.
It was essentially a bidding service.
If you pay more, you can send your Bitcoin faster.
Replace-by-fee was an attempt
to fix one of Bitcoin's design problems.
Something that Satoshi had speculated on
just before disappearing from the forums.
And Satoshi knew it would be a fair amount of work.
So, why would Peter Todd do it for 500 bucks?
On the forums, John Dillon publicly prodded Peter Todd to,
"Write some code for once."
And so, in 2013,
about three years after Satoshi's disappearance,
Peter Todd solves this design problem.
I played that little part,
creating this replace-by-fee patch.
Hoback: Which the Big Blockers thought was a terrible idea
because it could result in some really high fees
just to send some Bitcoin.
Ver: Peter Todd, whether he's a government agent,
he's absolutely a super smart guy.
He's gotta be the smartest guy in the room.
He always wants to make sure he can prove
that he's the smartest guy in the room.
So, is anyone in this audience
working for government right now?
(scattered laughter)
Because if you are, I guess I'm one of the people
handling negotiation with government.
Hoback: Even the email exchange
made Peter Todd look pretty damn smart.
But after the leak,
John Dillon disappeared for good.
As far as I know, Peter Todd never denied any of that.
I think that's pretty much accepted as fact at this point.
Hoback: I found myself wondering
if maybe he did work for the government in some way.
So, how close were you with Blockstream back in the day?
-Todd: Me? -Hoback: Yeah.
Uh, mostly, I went to their office,
uh, drink all their Red Bull.
I'd go and eat all their snacks.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they'd never pay me,
but I might as well get paid in all other possible ways.
Hoback: So, he was just strategically close to Adam.
Well, Adam seems to respect you a lot.
Meh, I mean I guess I have reasonable ideas.
It's not that hard. Adam respects plenty of people.
-I think he thinks of you like a son. -A son.
Yeah. I mean, I first talked to him
-when I was, like, a teenager. -(Mow laughs)
It's probably part of it.
♪♪
Hoback: They've got a lot of conspiracies about you.
Todd: Well, they should.
Don't you know I, like, worked for the CIA, NSA,
and also KGB at the same time?
Hoback: Well, they like to point at that email dump that happened.
Oh, yeah, yeah, the John Dillon bullshit.
-Hoback: Did you release that? -I have no idea who that guy is.
-Hoback: Really? -I mean, you know, people go
and email you all the time,
like, telling you all kinds of bullshit.
Hoback: Looked like you were trying to solve a lot of problems
-with him at the time, and, uh-- -No, I mean--
Hoback: And there was, like, concerns
that, I guess that John Dillon guy
was like under-- was like, an agent or something and then--
The guy explicitly claimed he was, uh,
you know, working for the US government intelligence.
But, you know, is that true or not?
Who the fuck knows? Like,
the problem with all this stuff
is people play all kinds of crazy games.
Could be a 4chan troll.
Like, that's just the reality of it.
You just don't know.
Hoback: In that email chain,
there was one thing that the John Dillon guy said,
where he was like,
"If the US government wanted to fuck up Bitcoin,
-here's the strategy that they might take." -Todd: Well, yeah...
If you wanted to go screw with Bitcoin,
one of the things you do is try to convince the coding community
to go splinter up into, like, five different efforts.
Hoback: Which is what happened after the Blocksize War.
Because if you couldn't change Bitcoin,
why not just make your own coin?
♪ Pump it up, you've got to pump it up ♪
♪ Don't you know, pump it up ♪
♪ You've got to pump it up ♪
Hoback: Soon, dozens, then hundreds,
then thousands of alternate coins revved up,
each coin proclaiming to offer
something different from Bitcoin.
You could even bank while you wank.
newscaster: It's unbelievable how much this has taken off.
Hoback: The crypto industry exploded.
-(elongated) Bitconne...ct! -(crowd cheering)
Hoback: Like the stock market,
you could bet that these alt coins
would boom in value, and many did,
with some coins 10-X-ing or 100-X-ing in value.
Wall Street now had competition.
You heard it here first! Bitcoin is going to zero!
Hoback: Virtually unregulated competition.
Dogecoin to the moon!
(rapid beeping)
Hoback: Which couldn't last.
(dramatic opera singing)
And now, the mark-- Oh! Ow! It went to zero!
Hoback: By the end of the year, the bubble burst louder
-than the stock market did in the early 2000s. -(screaming)
Bitcoin's value cut in half from its all-time high,
with the crypto casino
just making the whole industry seem stupid.
crypto investor: It sucks. I mean, I've lost
over $100,000 right now.
Yo! The motherfucking coins are dipping!
Why is the price falling so low?
I've never cried so much
in my grown-ass adult life.
It hurts. Um...
Yeah.
Nouriel Roubini: These shitcoins, they were outright scams
and frauds. If there were real shitcoins,
you could use them as manure to fertilize food.
I would rather buy shit, literally shit,
that's worth something, is a good fertilizer,
than buying shitcoins.
Hoback: So, how could Bitcoin separate itself from the pack?
choir: ♪ Hallelujah ♪
The answer was Bitcoin maximalism.
Bitcoin is perfect. It's perfect money.
singer: ♪ Hallelujah ♪
Hoback: It was salvation from the shitcoins.
A gift from on high.
Bitcoin is what they call the Immaculate Conception.
Hoback: The cure to all the world's problems.
This idea that Bitcoin was born perfect, you know?
It just, like, emerged from the mind of Satoshi,
almost like a gift that was received from God,
and just, like, perfectly articulated into the white paper,
and then into the code.
That's a complete myth.
Hoback: So Bitcoin's greatest "virtue"
became that it was already perfect,
reinforcing that it could never fundamentally change.
Which created an opening for its greatest competition.
Ethereum, a coin which was
Bitcoin's opposite in almost every way,
including having a very prominent founder.
-Why the hat? -Oh, yeah...
For mosquitoes?
(speaking English)
So, Bitcoin is a blockchain
that's designed for one application.
-The hat makes you even more... conspicious. -(Buterin mutters)
Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum basically will let people do
whatever thing that they want to do on top of it.
Hoback: Like NFTs,
which are basically just... whatever fucking shit
stored on a blockchain.
-We're part of the same community. We're both apes. -I know. Yes, love it.
Hoback: Some people paid ungodly amounts for these.
The Ethereum team even made their announcements
-through... rap. -(hip-hop music playing)
♪ Yo, not just a pre-compiler change of op-codes ♪
♪ We're here to sustain the scale of our full nodes ♪
♪ Proof-of-stake is hard, but what I do know ♪
♪ Is when we learn to shard we'll change the whole game though ♪
Back: I mean, that was super embarrassing, right?
-Yeah. -(laughter)
Proof of cringe or something.
-(Prince Philip laughs) -That was pretty bad.
Hoback: Naturally, Bitcoin maximalists hate Ethereum.
But then, what do you do with Ethereum? You make more shitcoins.
It went from 10,000 coins to 20,000 coins
in actually not that long of a period of time.
The Scambrian explosion.
-(laughter) -(somber music playing)
Hoback: But, the so-called Scambrian explosion
had a serious side effect.
China now had the excuse it needed
to ban all crypto currencies,
so that they could launch their own.
China's currency is going digital,
known as e-Chinese yuan.
Hoback: It was basically a government-backed shitcoin.
Their digital currency was inflationary,
their government had total control of your wallet,
and it took Bitcoin's privacy problems
and turned them into a feature.
speaker: The People's Bank of China is gonna be able
to peer inside of every single transaction.
So, they're building everything to be monitored.
(crowd clamoring)
So, there were protests in Hong Kong.
And what people had to do
was buy their subway tickets with cash.
-They couldn't use their card. -Hoback: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mow: Because then you can be traced
that you went to the protests.
So, it's a very dangerous thing.
Hoback: It's what's known as a CBDC,
or central bank digital currency.
With Bitcoin, it still takes some digging
to figure out who owns what.
And if you're careful, or you're Satoshi
-and never spend your coins, you can stay hidden. -(whoosh)
But, with CBDCs, your identity is known to the government
and your wallet controlled.
In other words, Satoshi's invention
had given rise to the very thing it aimed to prevent.
-(money rustling) -What would happen if other countries followed suit?
But, the Maxis were convinced that Bitcoin would win the day,
putting their faith on display
by pilgrimaging to a massive yearly conference.
And it's ridiculous.
-(upbeat music playing) -(crowd cheering)
I'll die on this hill, but they can't stop this idea.
Maxi: That bright orange future that is Bitcoin...
We are the vanguard of a new monetary system.
(cheering)
Yo! Yo! Yo! Bitcoin!
I am more bullish than ever on Bitcoin.
(music stops)
Hoback: It's like you're in some sort of cult.
(laughs) You're gonna make me look bad.
-(crowd cheering) -I have Senator Indira Kempis
to give an update on Mexico.
Indira Kempis: 67 million people are not included
in our financial system.
As the president of Madeira, I believe in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin, within Prospera,
operates as legal tender.
I'll make a small announcement.
I have a new Bitcoin company called Jan3.
I decided to leave Blockstream
and focus more on nation-state Bitcoin adoption.
Hoback: So, were they feeling the pressure?
(gallery chatter)
I guess Bitcoin doesn't adopt itself, right?
-Well, I want it to go faster. -(Back laughs)
Back: So, uh, your company name, 3Jan?
-Jan3. -So, explain why 3Jan?
January 3, 2009.
That was the start of Bitcoin, was it?
-Well, that's the Genesis Block, right? -Okay!
Every year, it's Jan 3 is the anniversary
-of the Genesis Block. -Alright, yeah, you're good on the anniversaries.
Hoback: Samson was telling me there was another anniversary recently
-that I did not know of. -Yeah, uh, Adam's birthday on April 5th.
(awkward laugh)
-That's not my birthday. -Inside joke.
-Is it? Very well. -It's an inside joke.
Hoback: April 5th
was Satoshi's supposed birthday.
-Mow: She wants to take a photo with her artwork. -Back: Okay.
-It has no sleeve, right? -No.
-It's a cloak? Alright. -It's a cloak.
-(shutters snapping, laughter) -You guys are having fun now.
So, he thinks that you're Satoshi.
I hope he doesn't. (laughs)
I tried to explain to him specifically that I'm not.
Hoback: I said that you can make a case for Adam,
and you can make a strong case,
but it doesn't mean that I'm convinced.
No, Satoshi was a team.
♪♪
(laughing)
Just kidding. Just kidding.
Hoback: Even with the breakup, I was a little surprised
he was trolling Adam this hard about being Satoshi.
-(Back speaking) -(laughter)
Hoback: Yeah, yeah, as long as the troll is on your side.
(Back speaking)
(soft music playing)
(upbeat music playing)
-(items clatter) -Mow: Oh, boy.
-(plane humming) -Hoback: The US had more or less fought wars
to maintain the status of the dollar
as the global reserve currency.
-Let's order a coffee. -Okay.
Hoback: How might they react
if more countries adopted Bitcoin?
Mow: I'm not gonna lie.
You're probably gonna get some heat
because the powers that be don't want this to happen.
Prince Philip: All currencies will turn to one.
Bitcoin.
Things change very quickly.
Tucker, I just wanna say hi. You're doing an excellent job.
That's my card. (laughs)
-I'm the crazy prince that's talking about Bitcoin. -(laughs)
But, you know how it is. They-- First, they laugh at you.
(indistinct chatter)
Stealth mode.
That's not stealth. That's a Canada hoodie.
(Prince Philip speaking English)
Jack Dorsey: What Bitcoin does to societies,
what it does to people's relationship with money,
to the state, to each other, it literally changes everything.
Hoback: But, what path would it take?
♪♪
Today, Bitcoin takes yet another turn lower.
This is a Bitcoin emergency.
Complete free fall. Anything can happen.
(thunder rumbles)
There's a crisis. You've got reporters calling you right now.
-(boat rumbling) -What are you telling them?
Well, I mean, people look at the short term,
and the news cycle is, like, day by day.
But, Bitcoin has been around for, like, over a decade.
(thunder cracks)
(Hoback speaking)
-(boat captain speaking) -Yeah.
-That's pretty cool. -(murmuring)
(Hoback speaking)
(boat captain speaking)
Hoback: Unfortunately for him,
amidst this crash,
Luna was a shitcoin that really hit the fan.
(Hoback speaking)
-He had it. -Yes. (laughs)
Hoback: Looking like a Ponzi scheme...
You're looking at a similar scale
to the Madoff Ponzi.
Hoback: ...after million-dollar Ponzi scheme...
Celsius is being accused of functioning
like a Ponzi scheme.
Hoback: ...this was their founder.
Who would be crazy enough to give their coins,
their crypto, to somebody who's not a bank?
Hoback: But the people who trusted this guy with their crypto,
they lost billions.
This is bullshit! I gave you my goddamn money!
I want it back! What the fuck is going on?!
Jim Cramer: Cryptocurrencies of all kinds
are still cascading with no real bottom in sight.
-(thunder cracks) -Hoback: Is lightning serious?
(boat roaring)
Uh, I guess we're-we're getting the hell outta here.
But, this storm wasn't over.
FTX shocked investors
by declaring bankruptcy this week.
It spent millions making sure its name was seen and known.
Hoback: Sam Bankman-Fried, known as SBF,
was the young, disheveled CEO of a massive US-based
crypto exchange called FTX.
FTX? It's a safe and easy way to get into crypto.
Eh, I don't think so.
Hoback: He defrauded customers and stole billions.
reporter: This is worse than Theranos.
This is worse than Madoff.
Hoback: And although he donated to a lot of politicians
and charities...
If I can do anything to help other people,
help the world, that's just as good.
Hoback: ...he didn't manage to bribe his way out of being arrested.
The fraud they committed was worse than the Enron mess,
according to the guy who cleaned up the Enron mess.
They used QuickBooks.
Multi-billion-dollar company using QuickBooks.
Back: The regulators, when they see something losing...
(thunder cracks)
...$60 billion of retail money,
then, of course, they're gonna have something to say.
Hoback: Yeah, alright, let's get out.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen,
began acting on an executive order
that Biden had signed to rein in the crypto industry.
There are risks to financial stability,
and we need a framework.
Hoback: But, what would this mean for Bitcoin?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
It's actually more realistic than you think.
-(planes idling) -Hello, Melina. Good to see you again.
Hoback: Samson returned to El Salvador,
where the President was facing increased
international pressure for having adopted Bitcoin.
The attacks are increasing.
This rating agency just downgraded
El Salvador's long-term debt.
They're trying to put the pressure on.
But, President doesn't give a fuck.
Shepard Smith: The International Monetary Fund
has urged El Salvador to reverse course on Bitcoin.
In response, Bukele tweeted,
"Okay, boomers. You have zero jurisdiction.
We are not your colony, your backyard, or your front yard."
William Soriano: The IMF has some political control
over the countries they assist.
And that's where Bitcoin comes in.
The first time I saw him, he was saying,
"We're ready to die on this hill. All of us!
We're ready to die on this hill."
Hoback: Hope they were ready because the powers that be
-had a plan of their own. -(waves splashing)
(insects chirping)
Okay, yeah, this is the news. So...
uh, MasterCard, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and others launch
a 12-week experimental digital dollar pilot
with the New York Fed. Did you see that?
I didn't see that. So what, it's a CBDC?
Oh, interesting.
-Your plot is coming true. -Can I give you this?
Mow: Things are heating up.
Can I give you some fiat?
-(laughter) -(curious music playing)
Hoback: Under the cover of the FTX scandal,
the United States announced
it would explore remaking the US Dollar as a CBDC.
You know, that thing that was condemned by Western media
-and US politicians over human rights issues. -(crowd yelling)
The Chinese CBDC is a surveillance tool.
Hoback: But now, the West was preparing to get on board.
The Fed even had their own white paper.
Jerome Powell: As our white paper on this topic notes,
a US CBDC could also potentially help maintain
the dollar's international standing.
-Hoback: A digital dollar... -(glitching)
...that could replace cash entirely.
And they weren't alone.
♪♪
reporter: 60% of central banks around the world
are currently experimenting with CBDCs.
The CBDCs, it's really or authoritarianism
from even Western governments.
On CBDCs, I have pushed that project.
By 2030,
Britcoin, a central bank digital currency,
will be up and running.
Hoback: Why would a country adopt Bitcoin
when a government could just
issue their own digital currency
and have complete control?
Digital public money could help drive out
bogus digital private money.
Ver: The technology is tough to compete with,
so if you can't beat 'em, you have to join 'em.
reporter: It is potentially the biggest change to money
since, I don't know,
currency consolidation after the Civil War.
Roubini: Once we have CBDCs,
they're gonna essentially crowd out
any alternative payment system.
So, the future of payment transaction
is one bank, run by the government
with some cooperation of the private sector,
financial institutions.
Hoback: So, banks might still manage things like giving out loans.
But someday, our bank accounts
could be directly with the Fed?
They can surveil all your transactions,
and they have complete data monopoly.
Well, I think it's a bit of a crossroads. (laughs)
It could become extremely dystopian.
♪♪
Mow: There is a way that you could do a CBDC
that is not... bad for people.
-But, the problem is they don't want that. -No, of course not.
They don't want the privacy.
Faster Bitcoin adoption means
the better off the world will be when the shit hits the fan.
And the shit is hitting the fan.
(curious music playing)
Fallout continues to grow from the collapse
of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
First Republic Bank,
second largest bank failure in US history.
Hoback: Following the pandemic, the Fed printed a lot of money.
$13 trillion. It triggered inflation
not seen in over 40 years.
Suddenly, banks had risky balance sheets.
There were bank runs,
and four massive banks were wiped out overnight.
Similar to what happened in 2009,
the government stepped in to prevent
a total financial meltdown.
I can reassure the members of the committee
that our banking system is sound.
Hoback: Amid this crisis,
regulators seized an opportunity.
Kathy Hochul: New York State Department of Financial Services
took possession of a New York chartered bank,
known as Signature, last night.
Hoback: This was strange
because Signature Bank wasn't actually insolvent.
Meanwhile, First Republic, another bank that failed, was.
But instead of shutting them down,
they got a full bail-out.
The difference, Signature was the only major bank
servicing the crypto industry.
The regulators are sending a, uh, a clear signal.
Stay, stay away from digital.
Hoback: But, the next signal would come in the form
of a familiar face.
So, Roger Ver, Bitcoin Jesus
was just arrested in Spain.
Roger had allegedly evaded
$48 million in Bitcoin taxes.
You can have your own private bank account, right?
It's called a Bitcoin account, and it's impossible
for the government to seize your account.
Hoback: But, it seems they could extradite him,
even though he'd renounced his US citizenship.
Todd: You know, what you're really asking
is what's the endpoint to the crackdowns.
This is an example of regulators
who cannot actually do what they want to do,
-which was just go ban Bitcoin. -Back: Right.
Instead, they apply pressure in this sort of alternative way
to go do something they're not really allowed to do.
They fired all the missiles now, right?
They-They've sued the biggest exchanges.
They've made all the allegations.
Hoback: But, the big banks and the government weren't done yet.
Dimon: Crypto, Bitcoin, etc.
If I was the government, I'd close it down.
We've got a way to do this!
Hoback: So, Senator Warren introduced a bipartisan bill
that would essentially make it illegal
to use Bitcoin like digital cash.
Asked if they would support this,
the banks seemed delighted.
-Let's go on down the line. -Absolutely.
-banker 1: Absolutely. -banker 2: Absolutely.
banker 3: Absolutely.
-Absolutely, Senator. -Okay, I like absolutely!
Hoback: But Wall Street had a plan.
Let's get it inside the regulated system
as much as, as we can.
Hoback: Bitcoin would be traded on the stock market,
but you wouldn't actually own it.
The banks and hedge funds, they would hold it for you.
This is the day where it goes from malarkey
to actually an investable asset.
Hoback: Bitcoin would now be a part of retirement funds and pensions.
Put Bitcoin in their 401(k)s.
Hoback: Solidifying its role as digital gold.
♪♪
It seemed so long as Bitcoin
didn't compete with the US dollar,
so long as governments could monitor every transaction...
Let's do a central bank digital currency.
Are you there?
Yes, I think it's time.
Hoback: ...so long as Bitcoin didn't function like digital cash,
it would be allowed.
Because the Small Blocker solution
kind of required government permission.
Taaki: Those people who are like, "We need Bitcoin
"to become, like, well-established,
become accepted by the banks,"
they didn't realize that they were, like, cutting this deal
which would compromise some Bitcoin's values.
Hoback: In fact, Maxis seemed more concerned
with Bitcoin hitting a million dollars
than being usable as cash.
Mow: To get to one million, we should be going up,
on average, 10k a day.
Hoback: And if Bitcoin hits a million dollars,
then Satoshi becomes a trillionaire.
O'Leary: And there has been rumors
that maybe Satoshi will weigh in.
Hoback: With the stakes so high,
and with Bitcoin being woven into
the fabric of the financial system,
affecting everyone,
perhaps the question of Satoshi's identity
was more pressing than ever.
(dramatic music playing)
(tense sting)
(birds flapping)
Peter's never taken you on one of his...
-caving adventures before, Adam? -No.
Civilization's ruins, eh? (laughs)
-Hoback: (laughs) Yeah. -End days.
Hoback: When you look out on all this, uh, abandoned shit,
what does it make you think of?
Maybe, um, a more decentralized future?
Geopolitically.
There's something to be said for not breaking what--
Todd: There's something to be said for exploring this great place.
-Back: Okay. -Todd: Without dying.
(Todd laughs)
Hoback: So, there's a lot of things that point to you,
Adam, being Satoshi,
and I had been spending some time trying to disprove that.
You know, like the Wikipedia edits?
Back: It was because I was like, why are you deleting this?
Bitcoin is a big deal. It's like a clever invention, right?
Hoback: You added suspects for Satoshi.
-Really? -Hoback: Yeah.
Well, don't-don't just agree with him. Ask for a proof.
That doesn't seem like something very advisable to do.
There's, like, old emails with you
commenting on Bitcoin in pretty detailed terms.
-I mean-- -Hoback: It doesn't mean that you're Satoshi.
-It just means that you were... -Yeah. Well, I think--
Hoback: ...you were engaged before you say you were engaged.
Anyway, like, you're missing the biggest piece of evidence
that he's Satoshi of all.
Which is that he gets on the Bitcoin Talk
in, what, 2012 or so? 2013?
-'13. Mm. -Yeah, '13.
And, like, he's clueless!
Doesn't know anything about Bitcoin!
Hoback: This wasn't the first time
Peter had pointed to this evidence.
Best evidence of him being Satoshi.
-Of not being Satoshi. -Todd: Being Satoshi.
Hoback: So, was his goal to out Adam as Satoshi?
It's hard to know, right? These agencies are sneaky.
Hoback: Months earlier, I began looking into Peter Todd,
trying to understand his motives.
In particular, I'd focused on the leaked email exchange
between Peter Todd and John Dillon,
the supposed government agent who had offered Peter
that ridiculous $500 reward to create replace-by-fee.
John Dillon's email had supposedly been hacked,
and their emails were leaked.
I wanna talk through the stuff
we were going over the other night.
So, I called up an editor on my team
to talk through some of these clues.
This is an encrypted email chain,
and this is all you do with the hack
is release something that makes Peter Todd look pretty good?
Uh, that, to me, that's part of what started to really...
smell like maybe it was the same person.
Going through the archives,
I discovered I wasn't alone.
Gavin Andresen and some of the folks at Blockstream,
they also suspected they were the same person.
-I mean, why did you create the John Dillon handle? -I didn't.
-(Back laughs) -Hoback: Come on!
Nope. Not me.
Hoback: He was playing bad cop. You're playing good cop.
Back: So, my theory about John Dillon
is that Peter just enjoys perverse game theory.
I don't enjoy perverse game theory that much.
Although it was certainly interesting
to get contacted by the guy.
-Okay. -I certainly enjoyed it enough to respond to him.
-(film crew laughing wildly) -Back: Mm-hmm.
-Okay. -Hoback: The only person who believes Peter is Peter.
Yeah, that's how it should be.
Hoback: If Peter Todd wasn't communicating
with a government agent, and he just made this shit up,
then why concoct such an elaborate scheme?
So, I went through everything I could find on Peter Todd,
going back to his earliest messages
on the Bitcoin Talk forum.
Now, Peter likes to suggest
that he didn't really get involved with Bitcoin until...
2014. That's when I sort of "quit the day job," if you will.
Hoback: But, he had registered all the way back
in December of 2010.
The first thing he wrote
was just asking for an invite to something.
But the next post, a few days later,
was super technical.
And then, he doesn't post again until 2012.
But, it's that super technical post
that made me rethink just about everything.
I was so taken aback, I called my editor immediately.
Uh, so, I'm kind of embarrassed I missed this.
So, his first post is on December 7, 2010.
But then, three days later, uh, he makes another post.
editor (on phone): "Of course, to be specific,
"the inputs and outputs can't match exactly
if the second transaction has a transaction fee."
Seems like he's responding to something.
(sighs) Yeah.
editor (on phone): Oh, responding to Satoshi?
Hoback: He's replying to Satoshi, yeah.
Yeah, like an hour and a half later.
But, read it closely.
Is he responding, David?
Or is he continuing a thought?
(typing)
♪♪
So, Satoshi is proposing this, like, future scheme
that hasn't been invented yet.
And Peter Todd
just kinda continues that thought
an hour and a half later.
Someone who had just created this account,
and never posted about Bitcoin before,
was finishing Satoshi's sentences?
With a deep fucking knowledge of how,
wait for it, replace-by-fee works.
That thing that Peter Todd
would one day invent a character for.
It gets weirder though, David.
So, you know, we've thought that, like,
Satoshi dropped off of the Bitcoin Talk forums
because of WikiLeaks, right?
But, when would Satoshi
drop off the Bitcoin Talk forum?
editor David (on phone): Three days after Peter Todd
-replies or adds on to this post. -Hoback: That's right.
You'll never see another post from Satoshi ever again.
Three days after joining the forum,
Peter Todd finishes Satoshi's sentence,
and then disappears.
Alongside Satoshi.
♪♪
Here's what I think might have happened.
He created this new account.
Then, a couple days later, you know,
writes the Satoshi post, logs out...
logs back in, but doesn't log back in
with the correct account.
And he posts as Peter Todd instead of Satoshi.
And then, makes a couple more posts as Satoshi
'cause he doesn't want it to look like
it's directly related to this.
And Peter Todd just evaporates for two fucking years.
editor David (on phone): That's, that's insane.
It's insane.
It was just so suspicious,
I wanted Peter to explain how this was possible.
Satoshi's last post was, like,
one week after I signed up for Bitcoin Talk.
But...
Hoback: Right. And then, you disappeared.
Yeah, then I disappeared. (laughs)
And Satoshi disappeared at the same time.
Todd: Yeah.
I really should've paid more attention to Bitcoin early on,
but, you know, I had other stuff to do.
Y-You corrected Satoshi, but it kind of looks more like
you were continuing a thought of Satoshi.
Well, Satoshi made a little brain fart on, like,
how exactly transactions work,
and I corrected him on that very boring thing.
Hoback: Why didn't you delete the 2010 post?
Why would I?
Hoback: Well,
I mean, 'cause it, it just makes you look like
you had these deep insights into Bitcoin at the time and--
Well, yeah. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto.
Hoback: I mean,
it's sort of the last thing you'd expect Satoshi to say.
Ah, but that's it.
That's like the meta level, right?
Because I know you would expect Satoshi Nakamoto
to delete the post. You just said,
"Why didn't Satoshi Nakamoto delete the post?"
-The post that was corrected? -Yeah, yeah, the correction post.
Right? But then, I did the next level of meta
and then didn't delete the post to go throw off people like you.
Hoback: Peter sure remembered this post
he'd made 13 years ago awfully well.
Yeah...
I don't know. You're-You're feeding him, like,
-footage that's just gonna be-- -Yeah. Oh, it's gonna be great.
Hoback: Peter Todd's strategy,
his game theory to throw people off the trail...
-Oh, no, I am Satoshi. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. -(Hoback laughs)
Hoback: ...was so effective,
I hadn't really considered him a suspect.
In fact, just about no one had considered him.
So, you don't think it's Peter? You-- No way?
Peter's ruled out way, way early on.
Hoback: And even insinuating this
would get you laughed off the forums.
Peter Todd was just a little kid back then.
Hoback: So, was it possible that
Peter Todd could be Satoshi?
When you start to, like, run through all the,
all the scenarios,
it checks a lot of boxes.
Satoshi wrote messages
like they were on an academic calendar,
with more time in the summer.
I was off getting a fine arts degree.
Hoback: Then, there was the British or Canadian writing style.
Todd: There was something called the Toronto Caving Group.
Hoback: In 2001, when the dude is 15 or 16,
he is literally already trying to figure out
how to turn Hashcash into a currency.
After all, I did try to invent Bitcoin.
And I'm not bitter that Satoshi got there first.
You know, when I first saw the Bitcoin code,
I was like, this is not a professional programmer.
Hoback: Which Peter Todd wasn't.
Experienced C++ coders basically confirmed
that it could've been written by either of you.
-So, do you think I can write in C++? -Hoback: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mm. That doesn't sound like you've done your research.
-(Todd laughs) -Yeah.
Hoback: But, that old resume he tried to scrub from the internet
showed that he'd coded a system in C++ from scratch.
Why bother lying about this?
So, he's done a bit of, bit of research. That's good.
Hoback: And if you were like, 22 when you created Bitcoin,
imagine what it would do to your psyche.
He's the contrarian of contrarians.
I-I think people often, often miss this nuance.
He always wants to make sure he can prove
that he's the smartest guy in the room.
Hoback: Well, I think if it was a team,
it wouldn't have been more than two people.
Didn't need even two people. One could have written it.
Hoback: But, who could Satoshi trust with Bitcoin's future?
Adam Back would keep the secret.
Hoback: Maybe the first guy that emailed back in 2008.
Or it could be somebody younger.
Hoback: The guy who, you know,
has sort of considered you like a son.
Remind me again, what's your source
for the "considered you like a son" thing?
Hoback: That was with you last time.
-Back: What? -No.
I think he thinks of you like a son.
A son. Yeah.
-(crosstalk) -No, sorry. No, no offense,
I'm much closer to Greg Maxwell than you.
Much closer.
Hoback: Greg Maxwell, who co-founds Blockstream with Adam Back.
This loose coupling isn't inherent.
You can sort of pick your degree of looseness.
Hoback: Keeping Peter at arm's length...
We talked about saying it would actually be much better
if I didn't work for Blockstream.
Hoback: ...in order to solve Bitcoin's technical problems,
which they couldn't do anonymously.
You need to give people space to actually work on these issues.
Hoback: But, they would need cover...
O'Leary: Whoever had access to Satoshi's email
was somewhat aligned with Blockstream.
Hoback: ...to push back against Gavin.
We'll definitely need to increase
the maximum block size.
That doesn't mean you're the leader.
That just means you're the guy who answers questions.
Hoback: And here's the big one.
What if the real reason for using the name Satoshi,
for the anonymity,
was so that people could take Bitcoin seriously?
So they could believe that it must have been created
by one of these famous cryptographers,
and not some kid still in school?
-So, here's what I think happened. -Todd: Hm?
-Possibly. Okay? -Todd: Possibly.
I think that John Dillon...
(Todd snickers)
...was created so that you would have an excuse
-to make replace-by-fee. -(Todd laughing)
A concept which you had envisioned years earlier,
-but you needed some kind of cover in order to make. -(laughing harder)
And you also needed some cover for that 2010 post.
Todd: (laughing) 2010 post? Please.
Yeah, because I was Satoshi?
Hoback: I mean, yeah.
You know, you're very concerned about all the privacy stuff.
-(laughing) -So, you reach out to your old buddy Adam Back.
You say, we need to do something about this,
but we need to pay the devs.
But you can't join Blockstream
-because it would look too, uh, suspicious. -(laughing harder)
-So, you don't. -(sighs) I will admit, you're pretty creative.
You come up with some crazy theories.
It's ludicrous,
but it's the sort of theory someone who spends their time
as a documentary journalist would come up with.
So yeah, yeah. I'll say, of course I'm Satoshi,
and I'm Craig Wright.
And yes, I was definitely covering
that little bit about, you know, fees
to go pretend to be Satoshi.
Or not Satoshi, one or the other. (snickers)
Hoback: Well, why make up the whole John Dillon thing?
-Well, like I said, I'm not John Dillon. -Hoback: Okay.
Sorry. I'm not John Dillon. I don't know who that is.
I'll warn you. This is gonna be very funny
when you put this into the documentary
and a bunch of Bitcoiners watch it.
-Back: I think-- -Hoback: Well, I don't think they would be very happy
with this conclusion because you're pretty controversial
within the community at this point.
No, I-I suspect a lot of them will be very happy
if you go this route.
'Cause it's gonna be like yet another example
of journalists really missing the point,
in a way that's very funny.
Hoback: What is the point?
The point is just to make Bitcoin the global currency.
And people like you being distracted by nonsense
can potentially do good on that.
(somber music playing)
Hoback: And it seemed this plan was coming to life.
(applause)
With Wall Street's involvement
bringing Bitcoin to new heights...
Hoback: El Salvador found itself in the black.
Suddenly, presidents were taking Samson's calls.
(group speaking Spanish)
And Argentina's newly elected president
shut down its central bank and allowed people
to use Bitcoin however they wanted.
Bitcoin was advancing as a currency,
even if America throttled its use as digital cash.
Maybe it wasn't the design that made Bitcoin so unstoppable.
Maybe it was human nature.
Or just plain old greed.
Even Dr. Doom
launched his own blockchain-based token.
Craig Wright was proven to be a fraud in court,
but it required Adam to finally release
his emails with Satoshi.
He had been telling the truth.
And as more of Satoshi's conversations came to light,
so did the genius,
the struggles, and the immaturity.
But, what about the stash?
Well, you know my-- I-I mean, I don't know for sure,
but, like, my suspicion is
Satoshi did, in fact, go destroy all of Satoshi's ability
to prove who they were.
Hoback: But, they hadn't burned the coins.
(explosion blasts)
Or in a way, had they?
A few months after confronting Peter,
I came across this old chat log,
that someone probably shouldn't have recorded,
where Peter says,
"I'm probably the world-leading expert
"on how to sacrifice your Bitcoins.
"And I've done exactly one such sacrifice,
and I did it by hand."
♪♪
It was hard not to read this as an admission.
Like Peter wanted his inner circle
to trust that he had, in fact, sacrificed the Bitcoins,
and destroyed all access.
But, this wasn't proof.
It's Bitcoin. Don't trust, verify.
And sometimes, you can't verify.
Back: Mm-hmm.
Hoback: And if Peter Todd and his friends at Blockstream
were, in fact, behind Bitcoin,
would he remain an idealist?
Or was he still holding on
to the keys to the world's fortune?
Just in case.
(dramatic music playing)
♪♪