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The crypto world will see another attempt to unmask the inventor of bitcoin with a new documentary this week — and tokens named after people thought to be the creator of the world's biggest crypto token are attracting a lot of attention ahead of the release.
Meme coins referencing bitcoin's possible inventors have seen sharp swings this week as a new HBO documentary, set to premiere Tuesday, suggests it will solve the decades-old mystery.
Coins like LEN, SASHA, and ODIN reference Len Sassaman, an American programmer long suspected of being bitcoin's creator. Since its launch on Sunday, SASHA—which references Sassaman's cat—has garnered a market cap of $418,000 and has fallen 60% in the last day after a brief rally, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
SZABO, meanwhile, a coin referencing computer scientist Nick Szabo, is up 377%. ADAM, which refers to Blockstream CEO Adam Back, is up 346% in the last 24 hours.
The crypto community has long speculated about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous author of the 2008 bitcoin white paper that established the idea of a frictionless, immutable payments system.
After its release and bitcoin's launch, Nakamoto interacted with users on web forums until 2011.
Sassaman, a cryptographer, has been among the top names most likely to be Satoshi Nakamotor for years due to his academic work on crypto and computer privacy, as well as the timing of his death.
Nakamoto sent his last email to the bitcoin community in April 2011, saying he had "moved on to other things," but that the currency is in good hands. Sassaman died shortly after, in July 2011, which observers speculate is why the community has never heard from Nakamoto.
Sassaman's wife, computer scientist Meredith Patterson, has previously denied that Sassaman created bitcoin, but acknowledged the new memecoins in a post to X:
"Right, so, me not knowing really anything about the world of memecoins, I apparently sent a few DMers a Coinbase address," she wrote. "But if people are insisting on sending me memecoins about my cat, I'm not gonna say no."
The documentary, called "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery," will premiere on HBO on Tuesday and follows filmmaker Cullen Hoback's effort to unmask the creator of bitcoin.
Ahead of the documentary's release, the mystery is also attracting attention on the prediction market Polymarket, with over $8 million in bets on who the documentary will name as the creator.
In recent days, participants have increasingly bet in favor of Nick Szabo, a computer scientist who published research on bitcoin's precursor "bit gold." Szabo has garnered around 15% of the bets, while Sassaman has garnered 7% as of Tuesday morning.
Around 7% of bettors suspect Blockstream CEO Adam Back, and a host of other cryptographers have attracted smaller shares of bettors.
