Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform, currently has American computer scientist Len Sassaman as the odds-on favorite to be revealed as the legendary “Satoshi Nakamoto” by an HBO documentary slated to air on Oct. 8.
The documentary, “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery,” is the latest expose from filmmaker Cullen Hoback. As Cointelegraph recently reported, Hoback and HBO are intimating that the film will ultimately reveal the true identity of Bitcoin’s mysterious creator.
Satoshi Nakamoto
Neither Hoback nor HBO have made the direct claim that Money Electric will definitively answer the question of who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
That being said, both parties have intimated as much in social media posts and the film’s trailer.
Speculation over who, specifically, could be revealed in Hoback’s film has reached Polymarket where a trading pool to determine “Who will HBO doc identify as Satoshi?” has reached a total volume of $389,738 (as of Oct. 4, 11:50 PST) with four days to go until the Oct. 8 reveal.
Polymarket odds on who HBO will reveal as Satoshi Nakamoto as of Oct. 4, 10:45 PST. Source: Polymarket.
While the usual suspects are present in the top five — Hal Finney, Adam Back, Craig Wright, and Nick Szabo — the leading candidate appears to be a lesser-known suspect, based on previous reporting on the matter of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity.
Per the Polymarket betting pool, late American computer scientist Len Sassaman is the most likely person to be outed as the real Satoshi by HBO’s upcoming documentary.
A tribute to Len Sassaman is embedded in the Bitcoin Blockchain beside Sassaman’s portrait. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Len Sassaman
It’s unclear exactly what connection Len Sassaman, an American computer scientist who passed away in Belgium at age 31 in 2011, had with Bitcoin.
A Medium post discussing the theory that Sassaman was Satoshi Nakamoto from 2023 claims he was “renowned for his involvement in the Cypherpunk movement.”
It adds that “his contributions to privacy-enhancing technologies … academic background and advocacy for open-source principles are well-documented, aligning with the ethos of Bitcoin.”
Currently, the rules of the particular market indicate that if Sassaman is identified by the HBO documentary as being the primary person responsible for the development of Bitcoin the market will resolve to “Yes.”
However, if there’s another person or a group of people responsible, or if Sassman is identified as being equally responsible, the market will resolve to “No.”
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