Peter Todd: "I am not Satoshi, and I did not create Bitcoin"

Today, Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized digital currency, whose history began in 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper where he first introduced the concept of a decentralized digital currency independent of banks and governments. The real identity of Satoshi is still a mystery. It is not known whether he is one person or a group of developers who decided to hide their identity. Despite numerous attempts to solve the mystery of Satoshi, none of the theories have been able to provide irrefutable evidence to confirm the identity of the creator of Bitcoin.

Another attempt to solve this mystery was made by the authors of the documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery. The director of the film, Cullen Hoback, claims to have found the real Satoshi Nakamoto and believes that he is the famous Bitcoin developer Peter Todd. However, as in previous cases, no hard evidence has been provided to support this version. Todd himself rejects this and questions the validity of the film's conclusions.

Peter Todd, however, is one of the most influential personalities in the Bitcoin world. He is also known for his active support of the Bitcoin community in Ukraine and his significant contribution to the development of cryptographic technologies. Todd has visited Ukraine on several occasions, including visits after the full-scale invasion started, to support the local crypto community and share his experience. In an exclusive interview with Mezha.Media, he expressed his opinion on the "exposé" film and shared his vision of the prospects for Bitcoin development in Ukraine, emphasizing the importance of regulation and raising awareness among the population.

We can't help but ask, did you create Bitcoin?

I am not Satoshi, nor did I create Bitcoin.

I certainly tried to create Bitcoin when I was in highschool. But like most people, I failed!

How do you feel after being named as the creator of Bitcoin in the documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery? Is it good fame or not?

It's mixed. Being falsely accused of being a multi-billionaire is obviously risky, and I've done some unplanned travel to mitigate that risk; Cullen (director Cullen Hoback - ed.) doesn't even have good evidence that Satoshi is a multi-billionaire. But this whole situation is also really funny, and does a good job of ridiculing the (many) journalists who have tried to find Satoshi.

Anyway, you gotta put this stuff in perspective: I did after all just come back from Kyiv, with Shahed drones flying around my airbnb multiple times in a month, and seeing anti-aircraft fire not that far away every 2-3 nights. A bit of drama around nonsense like this isn't a big deal.

It does say that western journalists tend to spend their time on what's

profitable to write about, rather than what's important. For example, Caolan Rob's (journalist Caolan Robertson - ed.) recent coverage of Russia's attempts to exterminate Khersonians being infinitely more important work than Cullen Hoback's:

The crew of Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery film cited as the main evidence a forum thread that you allegedly finished instead of Satoshi Nakamoto, allegedly forgetting to change your account. This information is not secret, it is 14 years old, and it is not 100% convincing. Why do you think they decided to include it in the final version of the movie?

Because they're not interested in the truth. I think Cullen was trying to make a documentary about Bitcoin and needed a marketing "hook" to hype it up and get attention.

That claim specifically is especially ridiculous. He's referring to this post.

The thing is, that's the second post I made with that account, and at the time, the account handle was set to a pseudonym.

If I had actually made that mistake, why on earth would I keep using that account rather than just discarding it and creating a new one? Why on earth would I change the account name to my legal name a few years later? It makes zero sense, and I think Cullen knows this.

Why do you think the identity of the creator of Bitcoin should be kept secret?

Who Satoshi is not important. The most remarkably thing about Bitcoin is the fact that the identity of Satoshi doesn't matter: the whole point is Bitcoin is a decentralized system not controlled by any one person or group!

You have been to Ukraine many times, including after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. Based on your observations, what changes have taken place in the Ukrainian bitcoin community? Does it continue to develop?

Unfortunately, due to the simple realities of the war in my experience the community has gotten smaller. The first time I visited in 2018 was to go to a very large conference; more recently we struggled to get 10 people in the audience. But obviously, that's just a fact of life during a war, where it's difficult to get outside speakers to come, and people are busy with other things.

In your opinion, is there a possibility of legalizing and wider use of Bitcoin in Ukraine, and what benefits would it bring?

A big risk that Ukraine has as a society is the tendency of wartime measures to stay permanently. As an example, you used to be able to buy sim cards in Ukraine and just plug them in, without AML/KYC (Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer verification - ed.), and you used to be able to refill them without any paperwork. IIUC that has been restricted due to the fact that Russian drones have been using the cellphone network.

Things like that are understandable violations of privacy and freedom during wartime, with Ukraine faced with an existential threat to its existence... but we don't want stuff like that to be locked down incrementally forever. Free and open societies are better for everyone.

Legalizing and expanding the usage of Bitcoin would be one way that the Ukrainian government could commit to maintaining a free and open society.

Also, on the economic side, Bitcoin promotes good financial discipline. We all know governments have a tendency to spend too much via the fact that they can essentially print money. Taking that away, committing to sound money, is just good discipline. And it's not unprecedented, lots of countries, do this already by adopting the fiat currencies of other, much larger, nations. As one of many examples, Montenegro uses the euro, and prior to adopting Bitcoin, El Salvador switched to the US dollar. For both those countries, doing so was adopting sound money from their perspective.

In one of your tweets on social network X, you wrote that if you had 1 billion bitcoins, Ukraine would have many more drones. 

First, thank you for your position. And secondly, I would like to ask you if you think the Ukrainian government could attract more investment in defense production if it opened up the possibility of investing in it through cryptocurrencies? Would this be of interest to the global Bitcoin community?

Unfortunately I don't think there are any easy answers here. Bitcoin is sound money. It can't magically make investment money appear out of thin air any more than fiat can. In the absence of external support, Ukraine has to find ways to make its economy genuinely competitive, both now, and into the future. If Ukraine wants investment money for, say, defense, it has to be able to credibly promise that in the future those investments will reap rewards.

The currency itself has little to do with those promises: Ukraine has to show that the Ukrainian people and economy will continue to function, and make those investments worth it.

And this of course is precisely why Russia is trying to kill so many Ukrainian civilians, and destroyed civilian targets: in war at this scale, the health of the economy is essential to funding both offense and defense. It's deeply evil. But doing things like blowing up hospitals and schools to force Ukrainians to flee to other countries damages the Ukrainian economy too, and thus Ukraine's ability to defend themselves.

For the same reason, Ukraine has to find ways to cause Russia's economy to collapse first. It's essential to destroy Russian economic targets like oil and gas, electricity, etc. All those things ultimately pay for war, and all those things should be considered legitimate military targets by Ukraine.

Yevheniia Hubina