Who was Len Sasaman, and why might HBO think he was Satoshi Nakamoto?

Update Oct 5, 1pm UTC: This article has been updated to add more information about Len Sassaman.

American cypherpunk and cryptographer Leonard Harris “Len” Sassaman has captured the attention of the crypto space, with Polymarket hawkers advocating for the late computer scientist's portrayal as the creator of Bitcoin in an upcoming HBO documentary.

On October 3rd, filmmaker Cullen Hoback announced an upcoming HBO documentary titled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery.” Hoback introduced the film on X, I'm Looking for Another Missing Man, implying that he's trying to find Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Hoback is best known for his HBO miniseries “Q: Into the Storm,” in which he claims to have identified some of the writers of the QAnon conspiracy theory — an unproven speculation pitting former President Donald Trump against satanic criminals in Hollywood.

While the creators of the documentary didn't list who they thought would be Nakamoto in the film, Polymarket punters were quick to put down who could emerge as the inventor of Bitcoin. As of October 5, 44.5% of punters support Sassaman, trailing on the list with famous Bitcoin figures such as Hal Finney, Adam Back, Nick Sabo and Paul Le Roux.

Who was Len Sassaman?

Sassaman attended a private school in his native Pennsylvania and excelled in cryptography.

Sassaman moved to San Francisco, California in his late teens and became a regular in the cypherpunk community – a computer privacy movement that began in the late 1980s. He eventually continued his studies under David Cham, the so-called godfather of crypto.

Sassaman has worked on projects such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software and its update, GNU Privacy Shield. He and his wife, computer scientist Meredith Patterson, founded SaaS startup Osogato.

Despite Sassaman's many achievements, the cryptographer was diagnosed with depression as a teenager. In the year On July 3, 2011, Sassaman died by suicide at the age of 31. After his death, a tribute to Sasaman was coded at block 138725 of the Bitcoin blockchain.

The memorial described Sassaman as “a friend, a kind soul and a mischievous one.”

Related: Bitcoin mining wallets wake up after 15 years – is this Satoshi?

Could Len Sasaman be Satoshi Nakamoto?

Fueling speculation that Sasaman is Nakamoto is the timing of Bitcoin's originator and Sasaman's death.

On April 23, 2011, two months before Sasaman's death, Nakamoto sent his last email to the Bitcoin community. The fictional creator of Bitcoin said he had a few things on his mind and moved on to other things. After the email, Nakamoto disappeared without further explanation.

Besides the timing, Sasaman's working relationship with another Nakamoto candidate, Finney, also fuels speculation that the late cryptographer may be the creator of BTN. According to a blog post by Global founder Evan Hatch, Sassaman worked on PGP with Finney at IT service provider Network Associates.

Nakamoto worked closely with Finney in the early days of Bitcoin. Besides Nakamoto, Finney was the first to contribute code to the protocol and run the node. The software developer writes extensively with Nakamoto and was also the first recipient of Bitcoin (BTC).

Phinney and Sassaman were also experts in Rimmel technology, a precursor to BTC. Blockstream CEO Adam Back previously hinted that Nakamoto could be the developer of Rimmel.

Hatch's blog post says Sassaman's main project is the development of a remail technology called PynchonGate, which allows anonymous data to be accessed across nodes. As the work progressed, Hatch said Sasaman focused on solving the Byzantine fault, a significant obstacle for peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

Solving the Byzantine fault was necessary to promote secure and decentralized crypto without the need for trusted third parties and double spending. Nakamoto's triple-entry accounting system solved the problem using blockchain.

Apart from these, Saisama's position contributes to the hypothesis that Nakamoto may have been involved in Bitcoin's development. The cryptographer is based in Belgium while making Bitcoin.

Nakamoto's writing contains word choices unique to British English, including words such as “bloody,” “flat,” “mathematical,” or “grey.” The Bitcoin Genesis block contains an article from The Times, a newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Europe.

“Len wasn't Satoshi,” said Sasaman's wife.

A lot of Polymarket gamblers are betting their money on HBO and don't believe that Satoshi, the widow of a dead developer, could be the creator of Bitcoin.

In the year

Magazine: Satoshi Nakamoto Saves the World with an NFT-enabled comic book series.

Additional reporting by Derek Anderson.