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Active debate continues around the newly released "Finding Satoshi" documentary. While some call the film the most convincing investigation into the mystery of Bitcoin's creator, one of the industry's long-standing figures and CEO of Blockstream, Adam Back, has suddenly criticized its conclusions, pointing to irreconcilable logical contradictions.
The documentary, which directors Tucker Tooley and Matthew Miele worked on for more than four years, puts forward the hypothesis that the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto did not represent a single individual, but rather a duo of prominent cypherpunks - Hal Finney and Len Sassaman.
The authors assign roles in such a way that Hal Finney (died in 2014) was responsible for writing the program code, while Len Sassaman (died in 2011) was the author of the theoretical foundation and the text of the Bitcoin whitepaper. The film relies on circumstantial evidence such as linguistic analysis - specifically Sassaman's British English - their joint work on PGP, and the specifics of their online activity.
Why Adam Back says time rules out Len Sassaman and Hal Finney as Bitcoin's creators
Adam Back, whom The New York Times earlier in April called the most likely candidate for the role of Satoshi, which he categorically denies, described the film's theory as "strange" and self-contradictory. His main arguments against the "Sassaman-Finney theory" are time zones and geography.
During the period of active Bitcoin development, Len Sassaman lived in Belgium, working on his doctoral dissertation at KU Leuven. Back points out that the timing of Satoshi's forum posts does not align with Sassaman's European daily schedule.
In addition, Back emphasizes that if Sassaman had indeed written the main text, then the final edits and the creator's activity at specific moments - for example, when Finney was running a marathon while Satoshi was online - make the theory of divided roles impossible.
According to Back, Hal Finney was always only the first user and tester, not a co-author of the system.
Despite Back's skepticism, the film has received support from other major figures. For example, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, called the investigation "the deepest look into the issue", while Mark Cuban described the film as "very high quality and thought-provoking".
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
