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Ben McKenzie: Stop Trying To Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, remains one of the blockchain’s great mysteries. Countless news articles, documentaries, and bits of internet speculation have attempted to unmask Satoshi to no avail. Earlier this month, The New York Times published a massive investigation into who they believed was behind Bitcoin. The man they identified protested that it wasn’t him. Ben McKenzie—yes, Ryan from The O.C.—thinks it’s better, for Bitcoin at least, that he remains unknown. Crypto, he says, “has a lot of aspects of a cult,” and “a deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym” is good for those. Just to be clear, McKenzie doesn’t want this. He’s spent the last five years on a quest to tell anyone who will listen that cryptocurrency is a bad idea. In 2023, he and journalist Jacob Silverman released “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud,” a book on the topic that includes interviews with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Tether cofounder Brock Pierce, among others. Earlier this month, McKenzie, who has an undergraduate degree in economics, released “Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,” a documentary based on a lot of his experiences investigating crypto and writing the book. As it was rolling out to theaters, McKenzie attended the inaugural WIRED@Night event to talk about the book and film (and read some mean tweets). He also sat down with WIRED’s Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond prior to the doc’s release to discuss his crypto fears—and what might happen to Bitcoin in the future.

Released on 04/28/2026

Transcript

I'm just so curious about your impressions

of this sort of like, mythology

and online fascination and almost sort of obsession-

Right. With the sort of this,

like, mythical figure, this magician, this wizard-

Yeah. Who created Bitcoin

and sort of catalyzed this entire movement

that we're now talking about.

Yeah, I mean, if you think of crypto as a story,

it's a story with this really devoted small following.

Mm-hmm.

And it has a lot of aspects of a cult.

And one great thing for a cult is to have this,

you know, deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym.

Because, in reality, it might be maybe this guy, Adam Back,

who we can talk about, who's a very interesting character,

or some other cypherpunk cryptographer from that era.

But then it would be a real person,

and a real person would be a little bit

of a letdown probably, right?

Whoever it is, yeah.

Yeah, right? Yeah.

I mean, it would be just such a better story

to have it be a mystery

and to have the code take on this mythological status

as like, you know,

It's gonna fix everything

that ails our traditional financial sector.

'Cause the crypto story is really simple.

It's basically, Do you hate our current system?

Everybody raises their hand.

Right. And then, well,

Bitcoin fixes this.

And it's the second part that's the lie.

I would argue it's far worse if we were to try

to somehow use cryptocurrency as as a form of money

on a global scale or even a national scale.

But the story is really simple,

and it's so powerful because the first part

we all agree on, you know?

Our current system sucks.

Right. And so, it gets

them pretty far.

I mean, what do we know about Adam Back?

So, a couple things.

I've never met him and I've interviewed him.

He does not like me.

[Katie chuckles] He's referred to me

as a crisis actor.

No. Yeah.

Well, I am an actor. I did not know that.

You are an actor, yeah. And it is a crisis,

so, you know, kinda, [Katie laughs]

you know, points for creativity.