The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selected three recipients for the economic prize on October 10. The news spread and became popular, like a famous person gossiping or an online casino’s latest game. This is for “research on banking and financial crises.” Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and US economists Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig were featured.
Ben Bernanke has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. Bernanke’s work demonstrates, according to the Nobel committee in Stockholm, “how crucial it is to prevent banks from failing.” In other words, why is quantitative easing (creating significant amounts of money from thin air) the solution?
Numerous crypto enthusiasts contended for years that Nakamoto, the fictitious name of the Bitcoin creator, was the most deserving contender for the economic award.
According to the institution’s description, the prize was established in 1968 “on the same basis as the Nobel Prizes, which have been presented since 1901.”
Even though he did not win this year’s economics prize, crypto enthusiasts have recognized Nakamoto publicly in various ways. A crypto organization erected a bronze statue of the famed Bitcoin creator in a Budapest park in September 2021.
The identity of Nakamoto, whether a person or a group, is the subject of crypto-related art, memes, internet discussions, and conjecture.
This Isn’t The First Time
Satoshi Nakamoto is an anonymous name (though many have tried to find out). Despite this, a while back, a UCLA finance professor announced that he would nominate the anonymous bitcoin developer for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
In 2016, Bhagwan Chowdhry announced in an essay for the Huffington Post that the prize committee had approached him to nominate Nakamoto and that he intended to do so.
The concept was developed by Bhagwan Chowdhry, an economics professor at the University of California in the United States. Chowdry believes that Satoshi’s proposal is the most significant event of the 21st century and will significantly impact the future of money management.
Most people are unaware that Nakamoto was nominated for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics. Bhagwan Chowdhry is an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
He believes that Satoshi’s technology is the most significant development of the twenty-first century. He stated that the technology would be utilized in several ways in the future inside the financial sector.
“I cannot think of another significant economic development in the past 30 years that had the same impact as Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Protocol by Satoshi Nakamoto has resulted in several fascinating FinTech advancements by demonstrating how many financial contracts may be established without a central authority.
“The work of Satoshi Nakamoto will alter not only how we see money, but also how central banks handle monetary policy, eliminate costly transfer services, and eliminate the fees that intermediaries such as Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal charge,” he added.
The Uproar
As the hosts of the YouTube channel Simply Bitcoin claim, “the award is evidence that we live in a Clown World. Ben Bernanke was awarded the Nobel Prize for his actions during the financial crisis.”
What did he do? He made a fortune off of the paper. Therefore, he was rewarded for pushing the P key on a computer keyboard. The Economics Nobel Prize should be awarded to Satoshi. I believe he has done significantly more than this other person. This individual has only made matters worse.”
Several notable individuals, such as podcaster and computer scientist Lex Fridman, have joined the chorus. Former MicroStrategy CEO and prominent Bitcoin enthusiast Michael Saylor retweeted him.
Others disagreed, like Blockstream’s chief strategy officer, Samson Mow, who stated, “No, Satoshi should not receive the Nobel Prize since Bitcoin is a fictional currency designed to maintain the status quo of the financial system. To honor Satoshi, you can operate a Bitcoin node.”
But Satoshi cannot win the reward because it is never awarded to anyone who does not provide their name or has passed away. Satoshi Nakamoto is only recognized for publishing his White Paper in 2009 and then vanish[ing] from the internet in 2011.
In this white paper, he extensively discusses the evolution of Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency system. This new virtual currency enables Internet transactions without using cash, credit cards, or debit cards. He advocated for a new system that would fundamentally alter how money is created.
It may be more appropriate to recognize other well-known early ecosystem contributors, such as former BTC core developer Gavin Andresen or Hal Finney, who made the first Bitcoin transaction and received its proceeds. However, Finney passed away in 2014, and the Nobel Foundation’s guidelines state that a Nobel Prize “cannot be awarded posthumously.”
