He is in the news because people betting on Polymarket believe that he might be Satoshi Nakamoto, the late cryptographer and privacy advocate.
An HBO documentary appears to have the potential to reveal the identity of the creator of Bitcoin, and the favorite candidate among Polymarket punters is the American cypherpunk and cryptographer Leonard Harris ‘Len’ Sassaman.
On Oct. 3, filmmaker Cullen Hoback announced an upcoming HBO documentary titled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery.” The film was also advertised on X, with Hoback noting that he was looking for another man who had vanished, implying that he was in search of the mysterious Bitcoin creator – Satoshi Nakamoto.
Hoback is known for his HBO miniseries titled “Q: Into the Storm,” where he claimed to know some of the authors of the QAnon conspiracy theory — an unsupported hypothesis involving Trump and Satanist child sacrifices in Hollywood.
As for the future exposure of Nakamoto, the documentary’s creators did not list the individuals they believe could be Nakamoto. However, Polymarket bettors have already started placing bets on who might be unmasked next. As of Oct. 5, 44.5% of bettors opted for Sassaman. Other equally influential Bitcoin personalities include Hal Finney, Adam Back, Nick Szabo, and Paul Le Roux.
Who was Len Sassaman?
Sassaman received his education at a private school in his home state of Pennsylvania and became an expert in cryptography at a young age.
After moving to San Francisco, California, Sassaman joined the cypherpunks, a computer privacy movement of the late 1980s. He went on to study under David Chaum, often referred to as the godfather of Cryptocurrencies.
Sassaman contributed to various projects, including the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program and its improvement, GNU Privacy Guard. He and his wife, computer scientist Meredith Patterson, also founded the SaaS startup Osogato.
Despite his successes, Sassaman struggled with depression from a young age. Tragically, he committed suicide at the age of 31 on July 3, 2011. After his passing, Sassaman’s picture was embedded into Block 138725 of the Bitcoin blockchain in his honor.
The memorial described Sassaman as a friend, a gentle and loving personality, and a cunning planner.
Could Len Sassaman be Satoshi Nakamoto?
Another factor that has led people to believe that Sassaman could be Nakamoto is the timing of his disappearance and death. Nakamoto last communicated with the Bitcoin community on April 23, 2011, about two months before Sassaman’s death. In his final message, Nakamoto mentioned that he had a couple of ideas and had moved on to other projects, then disappeared without further comment.
In addition, Sassaman’s close collaboration with Hal Finney, another potential Nakamoto candidate, adds to the speculation. Finney was the first recorded person to receive Bitcoin and contributed code to the protocol. He also communicated regularly with Nakamoto and was an expert in remailer technology, a predecessor to Bitcoin.
Some speculate that Nakamoto could have been a remailer developer, as theorized by Blockstream CEO Adam Back.
Sassaman’s main project, Pynchon Gate, was an extension of remailer technology that allowed pseudonymous information retrieval through nodes. According to Evan Hatch, founder of Worlds, Sassaman became increasingly obsessed with solving the Byzantine Fault problem, a major challenge in enabling secure and decentralized cryptocurrency.
Formulating a solution to the Byzantine Fault problem was key to the development of Bitcoin’s blockchain, which prevents double-spending without third-party verification.
Sassaman’s presence during the development of Bitcoin further fuels speculation that he could have been Nakamoto, especially considering that the cryptographer was located in Belgium during that time.
Nakamoto’s use of distinctive linguistic features commonly found in British English, such as words like ‘bloody difficult,’ ‘flat,’ ‘maths,’ and ‘grey,’ is also notable. However, the text in the first block of Bitcoin included a headline from The Times, a UK-based newspaper, further linking Nakamoto to Europe.
Sassaman’s wife says, “Len was not Satoshi”
Although many Polymarket bettors are wagering on HBO revealing Sassaman as Satoshi Nakamoto, his widow, Meredith Patterson, does not believe her husband was Bitcoin’s creator.
On February 23, 2021, Patterson posted on X, stating that, to her knowledge, her husband was not Nakamoto.