Peter Todd is a Canadian software developer who was an early contributor to the development of

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

. Todd has been involved in

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

since the early 2010s and has worked on blockchain and privacy-focused projects.

Biography

Peter Todd was born in Canada. When he was 15 years old he began communicating with

cypherpunks A cypherpunk is one who advocates the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a means of effecting social and political change. The cypherpunk movement originated in the late 1980s and gained traction with th ...

Adam Back Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the CEO of Blockstream, which he co-founded in 2014. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the bitcoin mining process. Life Back was born in London, England, in July ...

and Hal Finney. Before his career as a core developer, Peter Todd attended the

Ontario College of Art and Design Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park and Entertainment District neighbourhoods ...

in Toronto. In 2019, Todd filed a defamation suit against former

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Toronto, Canada ** Toronto Raptors * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor ...

developer Isis Lovecruft after they publicly accused him of rape and sexual misconduct on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Cryptocurrency involvement

In 2014 Todd stated that

Gavin Andresen Gavin Andresen (formerly Gavin Bell) (born November 11, 1966) is a software developer known for his involvement with bitcoin. He is based in Amherst, Massachusetts. Originally a developer of 3D graphics and virtual reality software, Andresen beca ...

had been responsible for code changes that resulted in Bitcoin's rising fees. In 2017 Todd was against an increase in the Bitcoin block size in relation to the controversy surrounding the

Bitcoin scalability problem The Bitcoin scalability problem refers to the limited capability of the Bitcoin network to handle large amounts of transaction data on its platform in a short span of time. It is related to the fact that records (known as ''blocks'') in the Bitc ...

and

SegWit Segregated Witness, or SegWit, is the name used for an implemented soft fork change in the transaction format of bitcoin. The formal title "Segregated Witness (Consensus layer)" had Bitcoin Improvement Proposal number BIP141. The declared purp ...

. The 2024

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

documentary '' Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery'' by

Cullen Hoback Cullen James Hoback (born July 15, 1981) is an American film producer and Film director, director. He is also an occasional columnist and Public speaker, speaker. His documentary films include ''Monster Camp'' (2007), ''Terms and Conditions May ...

named Todd as

's pseudonymous creator,

Satoshi Nakamoto Satoshi Nakamoto ( – 26 April 2011) is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin's original reference implementation. As part of the ...

. Todd has publicly denied being Nakamoto, stating in the film that it was "ludicrous". Hoback's theory includes a range of circumstantial evidence. In the film, Todd denied that he was Nakamoto, saying that it was "ludicrous" and "grasping at straws". Todd criticized Hoback for "QAnon style coincidence-based conspiracy thinking". No concrete evidence has been presented to support the claim, and the theory remains entirely speculative.

References

External links

* Canadian software engineers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People associated with Bitcoin Researchers in distributed computing {{DEFAULTSORT:Todd, Peter