Documentary names Hal Finney and Len Sassaman as Bitcoin’s creators

Documentary argues Satoshi was a joint pseudonym for Hal Finney and Len Sassaman.

Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym jointly used by cryptographers Hal Finney and Len Sassaman, according to the makers of a new documentary, Finding Satoshi, released on April 22.

The answer to the greatest financial mystery of our time.

Finding Satoshi, available now only at https://t.co/latbrWNjit pic.twitter.com/toxrj7fmXl

— Finding Satoshi (@findingsatoshi_) April 22, 2026

Directors Tucker Tooley and Matthew Miele conducted a four-year investigation led by American business writer William D. Cohan and private investigator Tyler Maroney.

One of the film’s key arguments is an analysis of candidates’ digital footprints. The authors matched Satoshi’s online behaviour with that of known early crypto figures and concluded that Finney and Sassaman fit the profile best.

By their account, the former handled the code and technical implementation, while the latter wrote and shaped the project’s prose and academic framing, including the white paper.

Dozens of interviews feature in the film. Among them: Bill Gates, Gary Gensler, Michael Saylor, Joseph Lubin and Fred Ehrsam.

Finding Satoshi, April 22nd pic.twitter.com/VZDNiD3Mhs

— Finding Satoshi (@findingsatoshi_) April 4, 2026

What pointed to Finney and Sassaman

The filmmakers cited several circumstantial indicators for Finney, who received the first bitcoin transaction from Satoshi, and who also:

• helped create RPOW — a key precursor to the first cryptocurrency;
• was renowned for fluency across programming languages.

They also noted a pause in his repository activity between the publication of the white paper in October 2008 and the launch of the main network in January 2009. In their view, Finney could have been working on Bitcoin during that window.

As for Sassaman, the film highlights his academic writing style, ties to the cypherpunks and expertise in anonymity.

The investigation also notes that, like Satoshi, the cryptographer used British spellings and intentionally depersonalised his texts stylistically. That could frustrate attempts to attribute the white paper by linguistic markers.

A co-authorship theory

A key plank of the co-authorship thesis is the confirmed link between the two figures. Finney and Sassaman knew each other, worked in the PGP community and stayed in contact in 2008 — the period when Bitcoin was being created, the filmmakers note.

The film also addresses a principal counterargument to the Finney hypothesis.

Earlier, researcher Jameson Lopp noted that at one point Satoshi was corresponding with a developer while the latter was running a race. Finding Satoshi treats this not as a refutation but as potential support for a two-author model: one may have focused on code, the other on public communications.

The widows of both presumed co-authors also took part. Fran Finney allowed that her husband might have contributed to the cryptocurrency — chiefly to code and editing.

Sassaman’s wife, Meredith Patterson, deemed the theory plausible and confirmed the cryptographers stayed in touch around the coin’s launch.

Still a hypothesis

Tooley and Miele stress that the film does not claim to have definitively unmasked Nakamoto. What Finding Satoshi presents is a version of events.

The film offers one of the most detailed explanations for why the creator’s early coins (about 1.1m BTC) remain untouched: both presumed authors have died.

The industry reaction has been cautious but at times warm. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong called it “the most thoughtful” take on the subject he has seen and allowed the authors may have landed on the right answer.

The Finding Satoshi documentary is the most thoughtful take on this subject I’ve seen out there.

It’s coming out tomorrow, but Coinbase users can get early access today. Open your Coinbase app to find out more! pic.twitter.com/dN15Y8VZBU

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) April 21, 2026

Not everyone supported the new version. A community member using the pseudonym Cam noted that Sassaman did not know the C++ programming language and never used a Windows computer.

Len Sassaman didn’t know C++ and never owned a windows machine. This according to his wife.

He also was a vocal critic of Bitcoin.

— Cam (@noremacback) April 22, 2026

“In addition, Sassaman was a prominent critic of Bitcoin,” he added.

Adam Back, a noted cryptographer and cypherpunk whom journalist John Carreyrou of the NYT had also named as the creator of the first cryptocurrency, agreed.

however Hal did help satoshi as he was an early user and submitted bug reports. not the same thing as co-author, and that Fran the way i heard it said it was not Hal. plus @nathanielpopper (also @nytimes) and author of “digital gold” book, got to meet with @halfin and was shown

— Adam Back (@adam3us) April 22, 2026

“Hal did help Satoshi — as an early user, he filed bug reports. But that is not co-authorship. And Fran, as I heard it, said it was not Hal. […] It is not very convincing to propose that Len and/or Hal were Satoshi yet left their families without bitcoins (and Hal had huge medical bills) and/or exposed them to risk,” he noted.

In April, Back questioned the size of Nakamoto’s fortune and suggested the Bitcoin creator might have lost the private keys.