I'd not heard that theory, but I remember when Dan Kaminsky put the BitLen tribute into the blockchain, and it was definitely more about Dan screwing with weird tech, and realizing that anything he put there would be there forever right around the time that a good friend of his passed away. Dan was super skeptical about cryptocurrencies, and most of what he did around the space was finding weird ways to fuck with it.

Len seems much more likely than Nick, based on what I have read, but curiously he is mentioned much less frequently.