Inside 'Finding Satoshi'

Tucker Tule spent approximately five years making Finding Satoshi, a documentary aimed at identifying Satoshi Nakamoto. The project began during COVID-19 after a film production in the Dominican Republic was shut down. The team was roughly two years and significant money into the project when they believed they had an answer, discarded that conclusion, and spent nearly three additional years to reach a final one, making the film far more expensive than anticipated.

The documentary uses animation and frames Bitcoin education within the Satoshi story to avoid feeling like a classroom experience. Tucker describes it as the first Satoshi film that feels human-focused rather than built around accusing a specific person, targeting viewers who know little about Bitcoin while aiming for emotional impact by the end as audiences come to know the people involved. Key contributors to the investigation include data scientist Alyssa Blackburn, FBI figure Katherine Puckett, Max Moore, Tyler, and Bill.

Alyssa Blackburn from Baylor conducted a circadian analysis of Satoshi's emails and transactions, layering the data over different time zones to identify when activity was most consistent. The analysis indicated most Satoshi correspondence occurred in the Pacific time zone. The film presents a two-person theory involving Hal Finney and Len Sassaman, noting both were remote employees at PGP under the same boss and both had no notable communications for approximately four to five months leading up to the Bitcoin code being released. Sassaman was known as an absolute night owl who worked at odd hours, which the filmmakers argue addresses the time zone discrepancy given he was known to be in Europe at the time. Adam Back described the Finney-Sassaman collaboration theory as odd and contradictory, a characterization the filmmakers dispute.

Fran Finney initially refused to participate and had consistently declined many prior requests. Filmmakers drove to Santa Barbara and rented a screening room to show her the film privately, and Natalie Brunel, who has a close relationship with Fran Finney, helped persuade her to agree to an interview. Her participation delayed the movie by approximately one year due to the responsibility filmmakers felt to protect her. The filmmakers went out of their way to make clear to audiences that Fran Finney does not hold billions of dollars or Bitcoin keys, and that many early Bitcoin contributors were involved for intellectual reasons and did not accumulate significant wealth.

The documentary explores why Satoshi used a pseudonym by pointing to Phil Zimmerman facing government prosecution and threatened jail time under the Clinton administration after PGP encryption was classified as a weapon. Early cypherpunks commonly used pseudonyms because predecessors faced legal or personal trouble for public identification with disruptive work, and as Bitcoin increased in value the motivation to remain anonymous grew stronger. Tucker said he did not believe Craig Wright was Satoshi going into the project and had previously considered Hal Finney, Len Sassaman, and Adam Back among the usual suspects.

Tucker described the most important interviews as those with Fran Finney and Meredith. Gary Gensler's interview came across almost like a love story to Bitcoin despite his regulatory opposition, with Gensler unable to hide his enthusiasm. Tucker argues that a two-person origin theory or any origin theory does not diminish respect for Bitcoin's creation given its mass adoption, and that Bitcoin going from zero to a trillion dollars in roughly ten years is a trajectory he considers unprecedented for any asset class.