Bitcoin advocates have once again launched their annual campaign to have Satoshi Nakamoto — the pseudonymous creator/s of Bitcoin — named as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
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Fast facts
- On Oct. 10, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize to Ben Bernanke, former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve and current member of the research group Brookings Institute; Douglas Diamond of the University of Chicago; and Philip Dybvig of the University of St. Louis for “research on banks and financial crises.”
- Twitter user Lucho Poletti outlined the case for Satoshi earlier in the week. “In 2008: Bernanke printed money to bail out banks who proliferated a subprime debt bubble that caused a global financial crisis. Satoshi created #Bitcoin, a money system that gives all humans economic freedom through the separation of money & state. Satoshi deserves a Nobel Prize”
- The chorus has been joined by some high-profile individuals, such as famed podcaster and computer scientist Lex Fridman, who was in turn re-tweeted by former MicroStrategy chief executive officer and well-known Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor.
- Others took a different approach, as Blockstream chief strategy officer Samson Mow replied: “No, Satoshi shouldn’t win the Nobel Prize because it’s a fiat construct used to prop up the legacy financial system. If you want to honor Satoshi, run a Bitcoin node.”
- However, Satoshi is not even eligible for the prize as it is never awarded anonymously nor after someone has died. Despite this, Professor of Finance at UCLA Anderson School, Bhagwan Chowdhry, nominated Satoshi for the prize in 2016.
- The recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics also caused a stir in the crypto world this year as it was awarded for their work in quantum mechanics — work that could have a significant impact on cryptocurrency if it transforms the technology of encryption.
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