HBO Max Bitcoin Doc 'Least Compelling Satoshi Identities I've Ever Seen'

We were supposed to know once and for all who the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of Bitcoin is, once and for all.  Instead, many of us were left with more questions than answers.

Of course, we here at Gambling911.com do not want to give anything away so we'll approach this one gently by removing names. 

The documentary, "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" premiered Tuesday night on HBO Max and, unfortunately, folks in countries across the globe (The UK and Canada included) do not have access.

One observation comes from Pledditor on Twitter.

"Just finished watching HBO Satoshi documentary.

"That was one of the least compelling Satoshi Nakamoto identities I've ever seen.

"Early on in the documentary, (around 11 minutes in), the narrator suggests the identity of Satoshi should not be known because it could endanger his safety. Then ironically, he proceeds to recklessly accuse Peter Todd of being Satoshi Nakamoto without actually having proof.

"They interviewed ******, and ***** was trolling ***** the whole time. At one point, ***** says "I suspect a lot of them [bitcoiners] will be very happy if you go this route [referring to ****** accusing *****of being Satoshi], because it's going to be yet another example of journalists really missing the point in a way that's very funny."

Pledditor continues with his analysis of that just happens to be strikingly similar to our own.

Roger Ver (AKA Bitcoin Jesus) is featured prominently in this documentary.  Above he is pictured right with Gambling911.com founder Chris Costigan (center) and CoinGeek founder Calvin Ayre.

'The ‘strongest’ piece of evidence presented was a reply ****** made to Satoshi [image attached], which the documentary framed ******* as accidentally continuing Satoshi’s thoughts while logged into an alt account. Believe it or not, this was their most compelling argument, and it's not compelling at all. It does not look to me like ***** is continuing Satoshi's thoughts, it just looks like he is correcting Satoshi, as ***** has done many times.

"The second best piece of 'evidence' was a message from a chat log where ****** once said he's an a uniquely qualified expert in sacrificing coins, because he did exactly one sacrifice before himself.

"Again, this is not proof of anything. Just more weak innuendo and circumstance.

"After that, that's when the evidence starts really falling off in quality (and that's saying something, because the earlier evidence wasn't good at all). ***** tries to use the John Dillion emails as proof of something, but I'm really not sure how any of it was related. He goes into some insane conspiracy theory where he believes ******* invented the John Dillion identity so he could coverup the tracks of his old forum post and make it easier for him to advocate for RBF. The level of reaching here rivals QAnon stuff (which is pretty ironic if you know what *****'s previous documentary was about)

"This documentary is emblematic of why all of the Satoshi Nakamoto theories are bunk. They all hinge on the belief that only a very small amount of people in the world are capable of building bitcoin, so the theorists just pick a notable person known for their achievements and work backwards retrospectively to find a bunch of 'coincidences' in their lifestyle/background to support their confirmation bias. It's a broken methodology which results in stalking and unethical doxxing.

"In reality, the potential amount of people with the profile and background capable of creating bitcoin in 2008 was in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. The likelihood that Satoshi was any one of these semi-public figures that regularly get accused of being Satoshi is pretty slim. That's why if you don't have concrete proof, you should probably keep your Satoshi Nakamoto identity theories to yourself. All it does is put a $60 billion dollar bounty on the back of what is (most likely) the wrong person."

The documentary does delve a bit into what helped make Bitcoin popular, the illicit drug trade.  It completely ignores the role of online gambling in helping cryptocurrencies go more mainstream in recent years.

"Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" also explores the approaches taken by countries like the US, China, El Salvador and Montenegro when it comes to embracing digital currencies.  This subject alone would have made for a more compelling documentary.  Any attempts to reveal who Satoshi might be only serves to dilute it.