Morning Minute | Who Is Satoshi? We May Soon Know

TylerD's Market Summary

🤯 Satoshi Documentary Set To Premiere

It's been a rough start to "Uptober" so far with crypto majors down 5-10% and alts + memes down even more.

Now the crypto space faces a new risk - the identity of Satoshi may be soon revealed.

How will it impact Bitcoin and the broader sector?

What Happened?

Yesterday news broke that a new upcoming HBO Documentary plans to reveal the mystery behind Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.

The documentary "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery" was made by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Cullen Hoback.

That matters because Hoback previously identified the authors of QAnon in a prior documentary.

So this isn't coming from some Hollywood wack job.

The documentary is set to air next Tuesday at 9 pm ET on HBO (watch the trailer here).

Who Are the Potential Candidates for Satoshi's Identity?

Of the first question on everyone's mind - who could Satoshi be?

The front runners seem to include:

• Len Sassaman: A late cryptographer who showed strong ideology similar to Satoshi's
• Hal Finney: A late software engineer and one of the first people to run Bitcoin’s software
• Dorian Nakamoto: A Japanese-American engineer who was falsely identified as Satoshi in 2014
• Nick Szabo: A computer scientist associated with the concept of “smart contracts” and creator of Bit Gold, a precursor to Bitcoin
• Adam Back: Creator of Hashcash, a key cryptographic innovation used in Bitcoin
• Craig Steven Wright: An Australian cryptographer who claimed to be Satoshi in 2016 but failed to provide definitive proof
• Paul Le Roux: Former programmer and criminal cartel boss (Beanie's pick)

Polymarket has spun up a market for this identify reveal, and at time of writing, Len Sassaman is the favorite at 37%.

Hal Finney (15%), Adam Back (8%) and then Paul Le Roux (5%) are the next leading candidates.

And Other (the field) is at 39%.

What Are They Saying:

Peter McCormack commented:

“For years, there’s been endless speculation about the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, both in print and in media. Yet, until someone signs the private keys linked to Satoshi’s addresses, all of this remains mere conjecture."

“Satoshi gave the world a profound gift in Bitcoin, but deliberately chose to remain anonymous — a decision that must be respected. Efforts to unmask them are not just irresponsible but potentially dangerous.”

Why It Matters

The reputation of Bitcoin may very well be on the line.

While I'd like to believe that Bitcoin is bigger than any one person at this point in time, if it is truly revealed that the founder was a criminal (like Paul Le Roux), that would likely set the space back significantly.

It will be hard to shake the "Crypto is for criminals" line after that.

There's also a ton of money on the line.

Satoshi is believed to hold 1.1M Bitcoin worth around $66B.

If they are revealed to be someone living, who could thus access (and potentially sell the Bitcoin), that adds a new overhang to the market and probably drives us lower.

With all of this said, there is some heavy skepticism that this team has found the true identity of Satoshi. And it's unlikely their findings will be easily accepted.

But we will see.

And next Tuesday night is now appointment viewing for crypto and Bitcoin enthusiasts.

🚚 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 $3.2M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $2.4M, and then Solana with $1.69M
• ETH NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +4% at 28 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.9, BAYC -1% at 10.65, Azuki +3% at 5.4, Milady +3% at 2.92
• RCS (+41%) and Yogurt Verse (+38%) were other notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were red down another 2-6%; NodeMonkes -4% at 0.167 BTC, Puppets -6% at 0.107 BTC, OMB -2% at 0.168, Quantum Cats even at 0.245
• The Runes leaders mostly chopped; DOG -1% at $337M mc, RSIC -5% at $66M mc, PUPS +3% at $64M and BILLION DOLLAR CAT -2% to $42M
• Solana NFTs were also mixed; Mad Lads +1% at 48.1 SOL, SMB Gen 2 -2% at 22.3, DeGods -5% at 15.9 SOL, Claynos +2% at 11.3
• Azuki announced a new partnership with Flashboots to debut the Bobu Magic Show
• A CryptoPunk sold for 24,000 ETH via a flash loan in a marketing stunt for an upcoming memecoin launch

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

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

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

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

• Crypto majors are green up 1-2%;  BTC +1% at $61,300; ETH +1% at $2,375, SOL +1% at $139; the FTX token FTT was a top alt mover +22%
• Memecoin majors are mixed; DOGE +2%, SHIBA +5%, PEPE even, WIF -1%, BONK -4%, POPCAT -1%, and MOG +4%
• Mark Cuban said that "Every memecoin is a rug pull in the works" in an interview with Farokh, where the pair discussed crypto, NFTs, politics, and more
• A new HBO Documentary “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” claims to reveal who Satoshi is in the debut Tuesday night at 9 pm ET
• Visa launched a new platform to support banks in testing fiat-backed tokens and smart contracts, with BBVA planning a Visa-backed stablecoin for 2025
• PayPal executed its first-ever business transaction using PYUSD, paying an invoice to E&Y
• Messari introduced a new AI-powered assistant "Copilot" which sources Messari's proprietary data warehouse including market data, fundraising, newsletters, podcasts and more 
• Credbull is launching a high-yield private credit facility, LiquidStone, on Plume, aiming to reach $500M in assets by 2025
• The CFTC moved forward with recommendations allowing tokenized shares of money-market funds to be used as collateral in trading

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $MANYU (+45% to $25M market cap, SOL)
• $GIKO (+44% to $43M market cap, SOL)
• $GIGA (+36% to $316M market cap, SOL)
• $FWOG (+26% to $140M market cap, SOL)
• $SCF(+23% to $77M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Project AEON (68%, 0.75 ETH)
• RCS (41%, 0.38 ETH)
• YOGURT VERSE (38%, 0.4 ETH)
• Decal by XCOPY (33%, 2.57  ETH)
• Nouns (32%, 4.89 ETH Floor)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a slower day to end the week.

The highlight is likely the start of the new Memes by 6529 SZN, season 9, featuring artist bubaviedma.

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

• FractCATI (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• MILK - PHOS (1:00 p.m. ET)
• Parallax Rendering - Aqua Dream (2:30 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.