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Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto Nominated For Nobel Prize
HughPickens.com writes: Nobel Prizes are given for making important — preferably fundamental — breakthroughs in the realm of ideas. That's just what Satoshi Nakamoto has done, according to Bhagwan Chowdhry, a professor of finance at UCLA. Chowdhry has nominated Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, for a Nobel prize in economics. The Prize Committee for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, popularly known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, has invited Chowdhry to nominate someone for the 2016 Prize. He started thinking about whose ideas are likely to have a disruptive influence in the twenty first century: "The invention of bitcoin — a digital currency — is nothing short of revolutionary," says Chowdhry. "It offers many advantages over both physical and paper currencies. It is secure, relying on almost unbreakable cryptographic code, can be divided into millions of smaller sub-units, and can be transferred securely and nearly instantaneously from one person to any other person in the world with access to internet bypassing governments, central banks and financial intermediaries." Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin Protocol has also spawned exciting innovations in the FinTech space by showing how financial contracts — not just currencies — can be digitized, securely verified and stored, and transferred instantaneously from one party to another.
There's only one problem. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Suppose the Nobel Committee is convinced that Satoshi Nakamoto deserves the Prize. Now the problem it will face is how to contact him to announce that he has won the Prize. According to Chowdhry, Nakamoto can be informed by contacting him online just the same way people have communicated with him in the past. He has anonymously communicated with the computer science and cryptography community. If he accepts the award, he can verifiably communicate his acceptance. Finally, there is the issue of the Prize money. Nakamoto is already in possession of several hundred million U.S. dollars worth of bitcoins so the additional prize money may not mean much to him. "Only if he wants, the committee could also transfer the prize money to my bitcoin address, 165sAHBpLHujHbHx2zSjC898oXEz25Awtj," concludes Chowdhry. "Mr Nakamoto and I will settle later."
There's only one problem. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Suppose the Nobel Committee is convinced that Satoshi Nakamoto deserves the Prize. Now the problem it will face is how to contact him to announce that he has won the Prize. According to Chowdhry, Nakamoto can be informed by contacting him online just the same way people have communicated with him in the past. He has anonymously communicated with the computer science and cryptography community. If he accepts the award, he can verifiably communicate his acceptance. Finally, there is the issue of the Prize money. Nakamoto is already in possession of several hundred million U.S. dollars worth of bitcoins so the additional prize money may not mean much to him. "Only if he wants, the committee could also transfer the prize money to my bitcoin address, 165sAHBpLHujHbHx2zSjC898oXEz25Awtj," concludes Chowdhry. "Mr Nakamoto and I will settle later."
Actually he already communicated with me anonymously that he wants them to transfer the money to ME, personally, and I will deliver it to him. Cash only.
Nobel prize still does not outweigh a perspective of spending the rest of a life behind bars.
There is no Nobel Prize for economics; it is a pretend prize that tries to piggy-back on the Nobel name to push an agenda (of course, some of the real Nobel prizes have been politicized as well).
Inventor of dynamite never intended it to be used to kill people... Bitcoin has the potential to change the world, but it's not the creator's fault that bad people abuse it early on.
You know nothing.
He created a decentralized trust chain, one that could be used in applications we cannot today even imagine. Let's say there's a country with no proper land registry... How do you transfer, demarcate or make original claims for a piece of land?
If there's enough mobile phones, computers, participating in a specific swarm due to self-interest (protecting land) then some random can't come and claim rights to the land with forged documents. It would only be valid if both sides agreed to the transaction and signed it cryptographically.
This also extends to bank-to-bank trust, and various others. Paedo-phobia and drug druggies are just where it found a proving ground.
popularly known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Economists like to call it that. But Alfred Nobel had more sense than to give a prize for hand waving.
And as we all know, traditional currency has never been used for criminal activity whatsoever.
You have made a currency for an underworld of drug & arms dealers, paedophile porn sites and murder for hire. Oh yes, a few people use it for normal transactions too, and it ruins the environment as you have to run computers for a long time to create it.
That's a pretty lame way to frame it. You forgot to mention that it rots your teeth and destroys family values.
American paper money is also the currency of underworld drugs and arms, pedophiles, and murder for hire.
Bitcoin is also the currency of freedom from oppression, freedom from centralized regulation based on political agendas, and massive surveilance.
The American dollar... not so much.
Did you think that the credit cards refusing to allow payments to WikiLeaks was a good thing?
Googling "BitCoin freedom" turns up just shy of a million links.
At least 2000 girls in Afghanistan are being paid in bitcoin for their blog writing and social media skills.
Bitcoin Will Thrust the World Towards Freedom
Inventor of dynamite never intended it to be used to kill people...
How peculiarly relevant that the inventor of dynamite was Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel prize
That's for the Nobel prize in economics, not for the peace prize.
Right. People with that kind of criminal record usually don't get a Nobel Prize for economics. They get the one for peace.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You just described the US dollar fiat currency!
Hell...anyone can be 'nominated'. Even Rush Limbaugh was 'nominated'.
They cannot even ensure that he's still alive, so it's all a silly flight of fancy.
He is, but he won't come forward until he's retired off-world, so ineligible for any Nobel-type awards.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
At last, the circle is complete.
Do you think traditional transactions gets processed for free, or do they also need to be processed?
If payement is not doing the needfuls, please be reverting the same kind guru's and post you're documents here showing error's of the same.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Who could have foreseen that something that makes a violent explosion could be used as a weapon?
In other news, the inventor of the ping pong paddle never intended it to be used to hit a little white ball.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But at a very high cost. The only way to create bitcoins is to waste energy. Worse, the amount of energy that must be wasted to create new bitcoins increases over time.
It doesn't necessarily increase over time, it may also decrease.
Bitcoin mining is a competition : the more they are, the harder it is, the less they are, the easier it is. Because of this, the worst case scenario, energy wise, is that the reward for mining is equal to the energy cost. It means that the energy cost for a new bitcoin will follow its valuation, until all possible bitcoins are mined. It won't be a major problem unless there is a major surge in bitcoin value well before we reach this maximum.
And if it is, there is always the solution of lowering the reward, no need for a next-gen digital currency. Transaction fees can be dealt with the same way.
And it would be nice if it were anonymous and yet safe.
Millions upon millions of BTC have been stolen (lost) and only the assholes who ran off with it knows where it is.
And God.
God knows where the BTC is.
Not that God is an asshole.
He just knows where it is.
The BTC, not the assholes.
Well, the assholes, too.
They are on Santa's Naughty list and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
He should be nominated for the Peace Prize, which actually is a Nobel prize. The Swedish Banker's prize is far less prestigious.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Or pay the Nobel prize to *my* bitcoin address.
I will settle with Mr Nakamoto later.
In fact I offer this service to all Nobel prize winners.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
Bitcoin is also the only way to pay for many things without the banks getting a piece of it. Bought something on ebay? Paypal gets 3-4%. Paying with a different currency than the merchant? Make that 7%
If your definition of currency requires that it be the liability of a counterparty, then who need that shit anyway?
By that standard, Bitcoin is better than currency.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
nventor of dynamite never intended it to be used to kill people
Not true at all. Nobel was one of the biggest armament manufacturers and merchants of the nineteenth century. As he got older he felt guilty about all the people who were being killed as a result of his inventions and business so he turned to philanthropy.
Feynman said getting the prize was the worst thing that ever happened to him.
"Country with no proper land registry"
So, for example, the United States of America
"How do you transfer, demarcate or make original claims for a piece of land?"
However you like, and then you just cross your fingers that nobody sues. If they do, it'll cost a vast amount of money and take years and probably nothing useful will be decided. Having a "decentralised trust chain" will alter nothing. You can buy insurance, and indeed if you need a mortgage you'll have to buy insurance.
You can't fix this problem with technology, it's a policy problem. Some people get very, very rich off the lack of a working registry. If you propose to implement one they will spend every penny they have to stop you.
n/t
Have gnu, will travel.
" It's a trap "
They finally gave up trying to figure out who the person is behind the name. So, they're gonna try a million dollar piece of cheese to see if they'll bite :D
Yep and that philanthropy survives today as the Nobel prize, the money for the prizes comes from his estate, it's held in perpetuity in a trust fund, profits from the fund are given away as prizes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Only if he wants, the committee could also transfer the prize money to my bitcoin address ..." concludes Chowdhry. "Mr Nakamoto and I will settle later."
Seems like it would make more sense to transfer the money to one of Mr Nakamoto's bitcoin addresses.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
>"Nobel Prizes are given for making important â" preferably fundamental â" breakthroughs in the realm of ideas"
Um, not always. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.cracked.com/article...
Sometimes the Nobel prize is a joke.
It would only be valid if both sides agreed to the transaction and signed it cryptographically.
All it does it confirm that the document hasn't changed since it was signed, the validity of the document is determined by property law. You can do the same thing by giving a copy of the document to an independent party for safe keeping. It's a complex solution to a simple problem of trust, and a waste of electricity to boot.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Latest reports are that the nobel prize being awarded needs five more confirmations from random networks across the world, so I guess we'll need to wait on those.
There's plenty of ways to make explosions in war, though. Those were all around way before that.
What makes you think your digital trust chain will be in any way enforcable in a nation that has collapsed so far that it doesn't even have a "proper land registry"?
In that situation, a gun would be far more useful than some bits on a computer somewhere. And that's only if someone else doesn't have bigger and/or more guns.
BTW, Nakamoto didn't invent the idea of decentralised trust chains. He borrowed the idea from existing public key encryption.
Speculative mining may continue long after the immediate returns are greatly outweighed by the energy costs because the value of bitcoins can be expected to rise; investing now with apparent losses may be profitable in the long term.
This may affect the sales of ASIC mining rigs but not the energy cost. To put it simply, why would I spend $500 of electricity mining a Bitcoin when I can buy one on the market for $300?
Not to mention the ever-growing blockchains are wasteful by their very existence.
The ever-growing blockchain is a bit wasteful yes. However, Satoshi showed in his paper that it isn't that bad. Also, there is a way for small actors not to have a copy of the whole blockchain.
Your simple problem of trust none the less manages to give rise to cases of fraud on a daily basis.
What he did do was take the corruptible fleshy mass of mostly water out of the equation. That is quite a significant achievement.
Are you suggesting that Bitcoin resembled a ponzi scheme? If so, could you elaborate as the similarity is not immediately apparent.
Bitcoin doesn't seem to be any worse than any other currency for the most part. The main issue is that exchanges and "banks" are not being regulated by the countries they reside in. Either they don't recognize Bitcoin as a currency, or they declined to regulate it, or they were just slow off the mark.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
so maybe guilt is driving bill gates too?
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Let's say there's a country with no proper land registry... How do you transfer, demarcate or make original claims for a piece of land?
You don't.
Without a central administration, there is no claim to land. The land isn't yours to sell, or yours to buy, or yours to own. No executive power can determine ownership, and so the enforcement of police and military does not protect your claim to land.
In such a situation, a decentralized cryptographic trust chain is as valid as a handshake over beer.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
He's probably an anarchist and thinks you can have a society without government.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Dynamite was never used as a military explosive except for certain demolition purposes.
love is just extroverted narcissism
But at a very high cost. The only way to create bitcoins is to waste energy. Worse, the amount of energy that must be wasted to create new bitcoins increases over time.
Here is your homework:
What is the total cost to produce a US penny? Of that, what is the total energy cost?
What is the cost to mine and refine an ounce of gold? What is the energy cost?
What is the cost to mine a bitcoin? What is the energy cost?
The answers may surprise you.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Bitcoin has certainly been put to the test the last couple years with scandal etc.... but it is still here.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Trust is not a simple problem.
> He started thinking about whose ideas are likely to have a disruptive influence in the twenty first century
Moving forward, "disruptive influences" are going to become more and more "dangerous". The folks coming up with them are going to want to stay anonymous more and more often.
Bark less. Wag more.
Whoosh...
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
At the time he made it, he was "rather focussed" on making it possible for miners to not blow their hands off, which was happening regularly with nitroglycerine.
That is temporary.
If I want to send the equivalent of $100 to somebody overseas, I spend $100 at a Bitcoin exchange to get BTC. I send the BTC to my recipient, who cashes it in at a Bitcoin exchange to get euros or whatever. That's two transactions with a Bitcoin exchange, and three Bitcoin transactions. Those aren't going to be free. Banks can do that sort of thing cheaper. Thing is, they don't.
With pressure from Bitcoin, banks will be forced to lower their international money transfer and currency exchange fees to the point where it's cheaper to use the banks.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Bitcoin does resemble a Ponzi scheme, in that the people who buy in early stand to get a lot of money, to be extracted from later adopters. Satoshi has a lot of Bitcoin, and the early adopters tend to have a good deal. If Bitcoin grows like its proponents want, the value of an individual Bitcoin will soar, leaving the early adopters rich and the late adopters out in the cold: they'll put real currency into the Bitcoin economy, and not benefit accordingly.
Bitcoin is considered a commodity in the US. I believe there are regulations on that, which the exchanges are not necessarily complying with. The problem is not that Bitcoin exchanges can't be regulated, but that they weren't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You only have to do that the first time. I could say that if I want to spend $100 online I need to open a bank account, deposit the $100, etc.
Look at it this way: if everybody were using BTC as currency nobody would be losing anything to the banks. That's a really good thing.
It's quite easy to defeat that kind of tracking. Send your coins to a bitcoin exchange, and sell them for currency. Later trade back to bitcoin and pull your funds out, typically on a different address.
Another way is to trade on localbitcoins.com for paper cash. The coins now belong to an unconnected person.
Finally, people run "tumbler" services, where multiple people put in funds, they are randomly sent through various addresses, and finally go back to the original people, but in random amounts to different addresses (addresses are essentially free to create).
Ah, but the irony of a system that eliminates the need for banks as middlemen being nominated for a banker's prize is delicious.
How is this different than a Silicon Valley startup where the founders and venture capitalists who got in early stand to get a lot of money from the IPO, extracted from later investors?
Early adopters of bitcoin had no assurance bitcoin would be worth anything at all. It was over a year before the first real world purchase happened (Two Papa John pizzas for 10,000 BTC), and a year and a half before they traded for over one cent.
Until a market developed for using them, they were just a cryptographic curiosity. There was no assurance the software would reach a usable and secure form, ever.
So then, tell me how that tale of woe impacted on the trust of the US dollar. It didn't? Was the point of your little rant to distract away from the lack of trust in bitcoin? Fix that problem and it has a chance of being something useful.
A successful startup produces things people want, more than they want something else, and they need to have a reason why someone else can't come along, do what they're doing, and undercut them in the marketplace. Bitcoin doesn't have that. Any number of other digital currencies could appear, and could be backed by large organizations. Bitcoin's advantages as a medium of exchange are temporary, since the banking system can do anything legitimate (and some other things) at a lower cost than Bitcoin.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Bitcoin is useful as a way to transfer value without going through the banks, to fund illegal activities, and as a speculative investment. It is not useful as a store of value. Therefore, since I'm not into that much speculation, I wouldn't just have Bitcoin sitting around, and to transfer value I'd have to buy the things off an exchange. Are there any exchanges where I can buy $100 of Bitcoin, and the next day, assuming no fluctuations in the market, sell that Bitcoin for $100? Even if there were, I'd not trust them, as I wouldn't see where they got their profit. I can deposit $100 in my bank account, then withdraw $100 the next day, and my balance is not changed by those transactions. I haven't lost money. The bank makes their money in lending my money out.
Suppose I want to send $100 to someone in Europe who wants it in Euros. I buy Bitcoins from an exchange, and there's a transfer of dollars to them and Bitcoins to me. I transfer my Bitcoins to my European friend. My European friend sells Bitcoins to an exchange in exchange for Euros. There are two exchange fees and three Bitcoin transactions, and those transactions are inherently expensive. Alternately, I deposit money in my bank, paying nothing for the privilege, and transfer it to my European friend, who withdraws it in Euros. That's two transactions which cost the banks almost nothing to perform, and a single currency exchange. Further, money in a bank is a good store of value (although I won't make any money on it), and so I'm likely to have that sitting around anyway.
If Bitcoin is cheaper than banks for this, it's because the banks are slapping on charges because they can. They can offer such international transfers cheaper than Bitcoin if they like.
And what do you have against banks? They'll do all sorts of useful things with my money, storing it safely, disbursing it according to my instructions, and it really doesn't cost much. I consider them useful institutions. I'm not talking about investment banking here, or the fancier stuff, just the bank services a guy like me would want.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So it's blood money then?
You're missing the point. You're comparing BTC to USD and saying that when the market fluctuates in favor of USD you're losing money holding BTC. That's true but by the same token you are losing money by holding USD when it goes the other way.
I agree that USD is a more convenient currency, I can't pay my rent or buy groceries with BTC.
If you haven't realized that banks are evil by now than I won't convince you. You've lived through a 7 year (and counting) recession that was caused by predatory lending policies, saw nobody get in any kind of trouble for it, saw those jerks fly to DC in their private jets to ask for handouts, and still you love them? Banks are bad news.
I'm a freelancer and when I can get a client to pay me with BTC I win. I keep all the money, don't pay account fees, don't worry about my account getting frozen (it's happened to me with paypal)
- startups don't pretend that they are a currency.
- investment, even private investment, is regulated
many people have faith in their god(s) too. doesn't make 'em real.
The USD is a reasonably stable currency. What I can buy with $100 decreases very slowly for the most part. It's a reasonable store of value. I know that, if I get paid, my pay is a reasonable amount for the work I did in the last pay period. I know that I'll not lose noticeably by paying my bills a week later. That isn't really true of Bitcoin.
Also, it's true that the transfer of value from me in the US to someone in Germany is inherently less expensive with banks than Bitcoin.
Banks also have different functions. Some of the functions serve my purposes very well at a reasonable price, and some don't. These functions were pretty well separated from the highly speculative and dangerous functions before the repeal of Glass-Seagal. If you don't like banks, I'd suggest finding a credit union you like. They stay out of the harmful stuff.
Every time a client pays you in Bitcoin, there's an inherent cost. Somebody's going to have to put a computer through a lot of work to make it happen. If you keep all the money by not paying taxes on it, you're in violation of the law. If you're saying you're avoiding fees, that's because the banks are charging what they can rather than something proportional to their actual costs. You don't have to worry about your account being frozen, but you do have to worry about keeping your key secret as well as making sure you can always get it, and you do have to worry about large value fluctuations.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes