Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff claim they knew about Satoshi Nakamoto through a Japanese scientist and also played a role in Bitcoin’s development.
Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff, former theoretical physicists and TV celebrities in France, say they knew Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and were engaged in the cryptocurrency’s inception.
“As mathematicians, Igor and I were able to help in the construction of portions of the source code, particularly the ‘predictive code,’” Grichka Bogdanoff said on the French TV show Non Stop People on July 1, and later expounded on his assertions on L’Heure des Pros on July 7.
The two brothers claimed to have worked with François Mizzi, the creator of the touchscreen, in the early 1990s, in his lab, which featured a Japanese scientist named Sotchiro Shimoda, who was “connected to the mythical person or a group of individuals” known as Nakamoto.
The Bogdanoff brothers stated they discussed ideas for a digital currency with Shimoda on a regular basis, but they didn’t go into depth.
When Bitcoin was launched in 2008, the Bogdanoff brothers claimed that Nakamoto gave them two “old Bitcoins” in “physical form.”
These assertions should be taken with a grain of salt, according to Hellmouth Banner, editor-in-chief of French crypto media site Journal du Coin, who told Decrypt that “in terms of trustworthiness, [the twins] are similar to a scientific version of the Kardashian family.”
The Bogdanoff twins, trained as physicists, rose to notoriety in France during the 1980s as hosts of the science education show XTemps. They’re now treated more like socialites than scientists.
“They make good recruits for attracting viewers because of their unusual look and often odd and original statements,” Banner added. They’ve been involved in a number of issues over the years, including questions about their academic credentials and a recent court case alleging that they defrauded a bipolar millionaire.
Despite their bold claims about their Bitcoin involvement, the twins’ announcement of their Ethereum investment has garnered much more interest.
THE BOGDANOFF TWINS BOUGHT $ETH, I REPEAT, THE BOGDANOFF TWINS BOUGHT $ETH pic.twitter.com/UVVZgBhVza
— Vitalik Booberin (@VBooberin) July 7, 2021
“They make fantastic recruits for attracting viewers because of their unusual look and often odd and original statements,” Banner added. They’ve been involved in a number of issues over the years, including questions about their academic credentials and a recent court case alleging that they defrauded a bipolar millionaire.
Despite their bold claims about their Bitcoin involvement, the twins’ announcement of their Ethereum investment has garnered much more interest.
Following a series of parody movies by the YouTube channel Bizonacci in 2018, depicting the Bogdanoffs as omnipotent market actors conspiring against an average crypto trader, the brothers became a running punchline in crypto.
In the video, one of Bogdanoff’s orders is to “get Vitalik on the line.” He urges Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, to “pump Ethereum for two hours and then wake him up.” Bogdanoff instructs the market to crash after the trader FOMOs into Ethereum, and it does.
The Bogdanoff meme grew in popularity after a Reddit user posted a photo of the twins in the r/wtf subreddit in 2015 with the caption “How do they think is attractive?!!” in reference to what appears to be botched plastic surgery.
An anonymous 4chan user cooked up a list of conspiracy theories regarding the Bogdanoff brothers in 2017, including direct contact with aliens, the power to influence the French prime minister, and “evidence that implies the Rothschilds are acting under their direction.”
A shot of Grichka Bogdanoff on the phone best encapsulated the conspiratorial meme. And, according to the Bogdanoff twins, that shot will soon become an NFT.
Igor Bogdanoff casually speculated, “It’s definitely Nakamoto who made [the photo] propagate.” He said the photo was “in all blockchains between 2010 and 2012” and had been downloaded over 1.3 billion times.
“Anyone who has spent two hours studying crypto culture can understand that it’s a load of improvised nonsense,” Banner remarked. However, because the Bogdanoffs have access to the entire Parisian intelligentsia, he believes a crypto project launched by them would be a success.
During the interviews, the Bogdanoff twins also announced the launch of Exo-Coin, a cryptocurrency. They didn’t give any specifics, but if the conspiracy theories are to be believed, the Bogdanoffs will be victorious.
