Who is Nick Szabo and why is he possibly the real Satoshi that HBO's new documentary will reveal?

After the producer of HBO's new documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery debut announced that he will be revealing the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin. It seems like the internet is coming up with new candidates every day to claim that he is the Satoshi that will be revealed in the documentary.

Len Sassaman was an early top contender, but now, netizens have ruled out that possibility and turned their attention to an American cryptographer, legal scholar and computer scientist Nick Szabo instead.

So what is the fuss about him, and why could he be Satoshi?

Rule of elimination... Just a few names left

Netizens are so interested in Satoshi that there is even currently an ongoing bet to guess the real identity of the founder of Bitcoin. According to polymarket, bettors have put 27.9% of the odds on Szabo, followed by Sassaman at 14% and Blockstream CEO Adam Back at 4.3%.

But the producer of the Cullen Hoback recently revealed in an interview with CNN that he has confronted the person he thinks is the real Satoshi; this made many eliminate Sassaman as a potential candidate of Satoshi because Sassaman passed away in 2011 and couldn't have been interviewed by Hoback.

Sassaman's widowed wife, Meredith Patterson, also confirmed by stating that HBO didn't approach her for the documentary, which completely eliminates Sassaman's run to be Satoshi.

Using the same rule of elimination would also rule Hal Finney, an American software developer out as he also passed back in 2014.

The uncanny resemblance between Bit Gold and Bitcoin?

In 1998, Szabo proposed a new form of currency called "Bit Gold." Bitgold was the first digital currency that didn't require any intermediaries and solved the double-spend problem via proof-of-work.

Szabo's Bit Gold Network also used a Chain of proof-of-work cryptographic solutions but relied on a quorum of addresses rather than a quorum of computing power to reach consensus.

Many have pointed towards the similarity between Bitcoin and Bit Gold. Some have even called Bit Gold the precursor to Bitcoin. Many have used this as an argument to claim the relationship between Szabo and Nakamoto.

Similar characters, writing styles and more

Amazingly, here is not where the similarity ends. In his book Bitcoin: The Future of Money? Author Dominic Frisby has also contended that Szabo and Satoshi Nakamoto have remarkably similar writing styles.

Furthermore, Szabo is known to be an extremely private and reserved person, just like Satoshi. Others have pointed out that both Satoshi and Szabo are around the same age as well.

In an X post, Hoback confirmed that he would be naming the person behind the pseudonym.