Morning Minute | Satoshi "Revealed"

TylerD's Market Summary

🤯 HBO Documentary "Reveals" Satoshi as Peter Todd

The debut of "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" was heavily anticipated.

Over $40M was bet on the outcome on Polymarket ahead of air time.

Did it deliver? And can we put this mystery to rest?

What Happened?

Last night, the Money Electric documentary aired on HBO and revealed Peter Todd as Satoshi.

The problem?

Peter came out 2 hours before the documentary and denied it.

The evidence provided by the documentary team mostly revolved around:

• Forum Post Link: A claim that Todd accidentally replied to one of Satoshi’s posts in 2010 under his own name rather than Satoshi’s, suggesting he might have been behind both accounts.
• Cryptographic Expertise: Todd’s long-standing interest in cryptography and early association with prominent Bitcoin figures like Adam Back.
• Spelling Patterns: Similarities in the use of British/Canadian spellings, which align with Todd's Canadian origin.
• Bitcoin Sacrifice Claim: Hoback points to a blog post where Todd calls himself an expert in sacrificing Bitcoin, which Hoback interprets as a hint that Todd may have deliberately destroyed access to Satoshi’s Bitcoin.

It was a fairly weak case, which I can confirm watching it live last night.

And that's before Peter's response.

Peter Todd Responds

In an email to Coindesk, Todd called our the filmmaker Cullen Hoback as "grasping at straws" and called the theory "ludicrous."

A few other quotes:

"Of course, I'm not Satoshi," Todd said in the email. "It's ironic that a director who is also known for a documentary on QAnon has resorted to QAnon style coincidence-based conspiracy thinking here too."

And from the documentary conclusion:

"This is going to be very funny when you put this into the documentary and a bunch of bitcoiners watch it. I suspect a lot of them will be very happy if you go this route because it's yet another example of journalists really missing the point in a way that's very funny."

Market Response

Luckily, Bitcoin has been unaffected by the documentary (down 0.5% at $62,100).

It seems the market isn't buying this outcome, or else, doesn't care. Which actually refutes one of the insinuations of the documentary that revealing Satoshi would be a risk to Bitcoin itself.

As for the betting market, in the end $44M was bet and the Other/Multiple option hit Yes.

Notably that outcome was trading at just 14% back on Oct 4 and just 37% early on Oct 7.

So either insiders weren't betting it, or they covered it up well.

Why It Matters

Actually identifying Satoshi could have had serious consequences.

Especially if it turned out to be a bad actor.

It doesn't seem that has happened in this case, on either account.

The mystery of Satoshi will live on.

As for the documentary, I did find it to be an interesting walk through Bitcoin history which I enjoyed. I didn't personally know the back story on the leading "suspects" tied to Satoshi.

There was some anti-crypto bias peppered in throughout, but that probably reflects the the consensus view of mainstream, so fair game.

My recommendation - go watch it, but take the outcome with a grain of salt.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $3.7M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $2.1M, and then Solana with $1.7M
• ETH NFT leaders mostly chopped while meme NFT led; Punks even at 27.6 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 9.5, BAYC even at 10.85, Azuki -3% at 5.18
• Project AEON (+100%) and Sproto Gremlins (+32%) were notable top movers, along with Mog Auras (+700%)
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly red besides Puppets; NodeMonkes -1% at 0.166 BTC, Puppets +7% at 0.138 BTC, OMB even at 0.17, Quantum Cats -4% at 0.24
• The Runes leaders were mixed; DOG -1% at $380M mc, PUPS +10% at $158M, RSIC +2% at $79M mc
• Solana NFTs were mixed; Mad Lads -1% at 46.6 SOL, SMB Gen 2 -1% at 21, DeGods +1% at 14.9 SOL
• Pudgy Studio announced the first collab with Plooshies, offering banners created by Froggy Cyborg for holders of Big and Lil Pudgy's
• Artist 0xdeafbeef announced he's dropping a "cheap" edition next week

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are red down 1-2% ahead of CPI today;  BTC -1$ at $62,150; ETH even at $2,440, SOL -1% at $143; EIGEN is the top alt mover up 12% to $750M mc
• Memecoin majors mostly chopped; DOGE +2%, SHIBA even, PEPE even, WIF +1%, BONK -2%, POPCAT -4%, and MOG -5%
• SPX was the big winner, jumping another 25% past $600M mc as the "Murad Memes" continue to grind up
• The KFC Espanol X account featured the WIF meme in a post late Tuesday
• Coinbase announced support for sending Bitcoin from its platform to Taproot addresses
• Crypto dot com sued the SEC over "unauthorized and unjust" crypto regulation in response to the SEC sending them a Wells Notice 
• Canary Capital filed with the SEC to offer an XRP ETF

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $supercycle (+600% to $12M market cap, SOL)
• $SIGMA (+75% to $60M market cap, SOL)
• $AURA (+70% to $34M market cap, SOL)
• $nub (+60% to $33M market cap, SOL)
• $CHUD (+55% to $25M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Mog Auras (700%, 0.16 ETH)
• Blips (360%, 0.06 ETH)
• Sprotoladys (150%, 0.06 ETH)
• GLHFers (119%, 0.09 ETH Floor)
• Project Aeon (100%, 1.8 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is another busier day of mints, spanning art, memes and Ordinals.

The highlight is likely the OP_CAT collection dropping on Bitcoin. It will be 3,333 in supply with a price of 1 FB (Fractal Bitcoin).

Otherwise Zigmarillion is the meme card artist and Johnson Tsang has a drop with Avant Arte.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Johnson Tsang x Avant Arte - The Moment (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• OP_CAT_IS_COMING (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Toshi (12:00 p.m. ET)
• BeraClan (1:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.d.warner@gmail.com.