New HBO Documentary Claims Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Len Sassaman

https://www.blockhead.co/2024/10/05/new-bitcoin-documentary-to-sheds-more-light-on-satoshi-nakamotos-identity/

by dist-epoch • 2 years ago

52 66 2 years ago

blockhead.co

thih9• 2 years ago

The documentary may be new but the claim is not. The tweet embedded in the submission itself says:

there was a good write-up of this theory by @evan_worlds in 2021

The detailed writeup from 2021 is easily accessible[1]; Len’s Wikipedia page mentions that theory too[2].

[1] https://evanhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c8...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman

dboreham3• 2 years ago

The article doesn't mention this, but presumably analysis of the quite large and available codebases Len is known to have worked on could be done vs the Satoshi code? In the past I've tried to write code that doesn't look like I wrote it, but it's exhausting and probably won't defeat modern AI methods.

kevinmchugh• 2 years ago

This article is not great. You can see from a link that somebody else had previously named Sassaman, but there's no discussion of that. No discussion of why Hoback suspects Sassaman (although, probably too early for that). No mention of Hoback pretty convincingly naming Q in QAnon: Into the Storm.

Also it uses "cyberpunk" in place of "cypherpunk" at one point

gomerspiles• 2 years ago

I'd categorize a cypherpunk as a very specific form a cyberpunk, so to me that's normal journalistic form to use both terms at some point in an article.

adastra22• 2 years ago

Cypherpunk and cyberpunk are totally unrelated.

bitexploder2• 2 years ago

This is not a new theory: https://news.bitcoin.com/the-many-facts-pointing-to-cypherpu...

There are several good much older articles and posts digging into Sassaman and Finley and the sort of cyberpunk scene from that region of the country. Hard to search it up right now due to article spam about this documentary.

yuvadam• 2 years ago

This [1] is the canonical article you're looking for.

[1] https://evanhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c8...

bitexploder2• 2 years ago

Thanks. If you are reading and got this far, my link was probably a blog spam of the parent’s link and was the actual link I tried to find.

KomoD2• 2 years ago

due to article spam about this documentary.

Such as this one by "Blockhead", all very low quality

miohtama2• 2 years ago

I like the theory of Steve Jobs being Satoshi better:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/apple-bi...

Garvi• 2 years ago

The guy that died of actually curable cancer because he believed in some alternative nonsense cure? I cannot think of a single other reason why Apple would be "hiding a bitcoin manifesto in Macs [...] fueling theories that Steve Jobs was Satoshi Nakamoto".

miohtama2• 2 years ago

It was a joke, sir

DrewStern6• 2 years ago

Len isn't Satoshi. Len may have been employed by Satoshi at one point though.

toinewx3• 2 years ago

this is a valid comment, there are counterpoints to the Len theory

DrewStern6• 2 years ago

There's no reason to theorize about anything. Maybe HBO should've hunted through all of the crypto-related US patents filed in the 10-15-20 years before Bitcoin was released. Happy hunting!

sandworm101• 2 years ago

And this will no doubt be good for bitcoin, especially in the long run. Pyramids never fall.

Bengalilol2• 2 years ago

I don't get the "HBO claims BTC creator is Len". I saw that the internet is betting on him, but there's no evidence whatsoever that HBO will claim this. (And yes, I almost think Len's quite the right candidate, cf Evan "Leung" Hatch's article on Medium).

KomoD2• 2 years ago

They'll probably just list the usual suspects and say it's likely one of them.

toinewx3• 2 years ago

I read that Len was a heavy linux user with no Windows experience. Meanwhile, the first bitcoin implementation is done on Windows for Windows.

Some people may remember better this aspect.

dist-epoch• 2 years ago

That would be exactly the kind of thing to do to obfuscate your identity.

dstroot• 2 years ago

That would be done because the user base of windows at the time dwarfed that of Linux. There are other better ways to cover your identity.

Waterluvian• 2 years ago

That seems possible. But this kind of explanation is also indistinguishable from “it’s just part of the conspiracy” type of logical track.

mrkramer3• 2 years ago

You guys are overthinking or just having fun claiming such stuff. Satoshi covered his tracks at communication and distribution layer e.g. using fake name, using TOR, using anon email, anon host etc.

I'm almost certain from everything I've seen about Bitcoin over the years that he wasn't a Linux developer who learnt Windows and C++ just to "obfuscate" his identity, he wasn't a non-native English speaker who learnt perfect English just to "obfuscate" his origin. He wasn't a professional cryptographer or even up to date with the latest cryptographic research according to Gavin Andresen[0]. It's most likely that he was indeed a native English speaker and a C++ Windows programmer who happened to be very passionate about digital cash payment solutions.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uWigVKslYg

dboreham3• 2 years ago

I'm skeptical about this. Although I have been a Linux user since 1992, in my (fairly wide) experience Linux was not used in commercial settings until around 2000. Len was a professional developer working for SV companies during that period. So was I. I did have colleagues with no Windows experience, but they would have been Solaris users (or HPUX or...). Anyone writing code to be used by regular end-users would have had to have targeted Windows because there simply wasn't much of any installed base for any other OS at the time. Plus, according to the Medium article, Len worked on the PGP codebase. PGP ran on Windows (Win32, not sure about Win16).

FileSorter2• 2 years ago

Yep, I make this point often.

The only two that match up with the Windows piece of the puzzle are Dave Kleiman and Paul Le Roux. Of those two, Paul Le Roux had a interest in online gambling. Guess what the first Bitcoin release had references to.

sdeep27• 2 years ago

There’s one more man you are missing that fits better with the Windows piece that is more likely than those two. A man that was obsessed with anonymity (with no real picture of him on the net), an active writer still today, and with the coding and cryptography chops to have actually built it.

CSMastermind• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux

I was unfamiliar and that was the wildest Wikipedia article I've read in a long time.

blisstonia• 2 years ago

Whatever you think of cryptocurrencies, the mystery is alluring and endlessly fascinating.

toinewx3• 2 years ago

does the documentary bring new elements?

aa_is_op• 2 years ago

They're wrong. It's me

hi-v-rocknroll3• 2 years ago

If I then said "it's me," that would be an obvious echo.

Or if I instead said "it's not me", that would a contrarian echo.

So I'm just going to say: it's probably not me, the last time I checked, but I'd be happy to be wrong.

imaginationra• 2 years ago

New HBO Documentary makes unfounded sensational claim to call attention to new mediocre documentary by HBO. *fixed it

szvsw• 2 years ago

It’s not really unfounded. Several commenters in this thread have already linked a well-researched piece from a few years ago which (convincingly) compiles all the evidence. So it seems blatantly wrong to say it’s unfounded…

drexlspivey2• 2 years ago

For what it’s worth, this is the histogram of Satoshi’s bitcointalk post times in GMT https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5...

Assuming he didn’t post from work (for opsec reasons), this is most consistent with living/working in central/eastern europe/africa. Len Sassaman lived and worked in SV.

sam_lowry_• 2 years ago

And Belgium

dboreham3• 2 years ago

...and Belgium apparently.

bitshiftfaced• 2 years ago

This article shows how his Tweet times match well with Satoshi's posts: https://evanhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c8...

junto2• 2 years ago

I always found it interesting to read the initial announcement and follow up emails on the Cryptography Mailing List by Satoshi in 2009.

Hal Finney responds relatively quickly to Satoshi’s email, whilst the rest of the mailing list is embroiled in a hash algorithm discussion (TLS/MD5/SHA1/SHA256).

Finney goes into some detail suggesting to me that he already knew beforehand what Bitcoin was about and how it could work and change the world. Of course parts of Bitcoin were based on his RPOW paper as well as building on much of the developments in digital cash up to then.

Much of the feedback was negative (without it seems testing it) and based on the concept of digital cash in general and POW. Ironically it was also pointed out by another member that Bitcoin’s proof of work would require a lot of energy and have negative effects on the environment if successful. But most of the discussion and pro-side was promoted by both Finney and Satoshi. It almost seems “sock-puppet-esque”, or at a minimum Finney was already invested in the idea.

https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January...

tim333• 2 years ago

From the comments under your link

If those times are UTC, then he was mostly sleeping between 00:00 and 08:00 EST

Which suggests US east coast?

drexlspivey2• 2 years ago

Between

1) occasionally posted between midnight and 8 am and never posted from work (US based)

2) never post between midnight and 8am and post 80% of your posts during work hours (EU based)

I think number 2 makes a lot more sense for someone trying his best to cover his tracks

worstspotgain• 2 years ago

Don't underestimate the possibility of Satoshi being an anti-West nation state. They tend to have brainpower lying around, and have an enormous interest in currency systems they cannot be excluded from (see e.g. Russia's Swift ban.)

By retaining the large initial chunk, they keep the origin and rationale secret. They also retain the ability to cherrybomb it as needed. Lastly, if the origin was known, there might be a push to get everyone to agree to invalidate their holdings via a special case.

stefanos82• 2 years ago

To me the most appealing hypothesis was this comment https://web.archive.org/web/20240407013631/https://www.reddi...

The commenter deleted it for whatever reason after a while...

jonahbenton• 2 years ago

Some very interesting and applicable work happening among Japanese scientists in the late 1990s. "Satoshi" is either dead or Japanese, no one else could keep quiet.

jeremyjh• 2 years ago

I agree it sounds really compelling that those three names are involved, but as mentioned they could just be influences that motivated that particular pseudonym. It would be hard for three people to keep such a secret.

Loughla• 2 years ago

It would also be hard for three people to stay alive and in each other's good graces with the amount of money on the table. There's no way it was multiple people.

irthomasthomas• 2 years ago

Then we can reasonably conclude that Len Sassaman was NOT Satoshi Nakamoto.

BTW, Satoshi Nakamoto translated to English = Central Intelligence. (Family name first in formal Japanese.) Fun coincidence.

DrewStern6• 2 years ago

Another funny coincidence is the email that Satoshi chose to use in the whitepaper: SatoshiN@gmx.com. Observe that `SatoshiN' can be interpreted as `Sat(4 chars)N', or equivalently: `Sat4N'! Meaning each time you send someone sats, you're actually sending them little satans. :)

What an excellent sense of humor Satoshi had.

3np2• 2 years ago

Observe that `SatoshiN' can be interpreted as `Sat(4 chars)N'

No, i can not observe that.

astrange• 2 years ago

Nakamoto Satoshi is more like "guy with a lot of wisdom and lives inland".

This is exactly the picture I'd expect from a guy who read a Gibson novel and gave himself a Japanese name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman#/media/File:Len_S...

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41732985

hi-v-rocknroll3• 2 years ago

There is probably no single "Satoshi" individual, but that was their avatar "API boundary" with which to interface with the rest of the world. It was probably a scheme to financialize fintech (with an emphasis on tech) by 2-4 people who then held large amounts of the value they printed, making them covert decabillionaires able to escape press, kidnapping, pitch schemes, and taxation.

New HBO Documentary Claims Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Len Sassaman

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