Nobel Committee Shuts Down Bitcoin Award Rumor
They will not award a Nobel to a nominee without a verified identity.
Since UCLA Professor of Finance Bhagwan Chowdhry suggested nominating supposed Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto for the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, a lot of questions have come up. Namely, whether the Nobel Committee could award the prize to someone who might not even exist.
It looks like the answer is no.
“The prize, as in this instance, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is never awarded anonymously nor posthumously.”
That’s Nobel press officer The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Reuterskiöld responding to our question about whether he could be nominated for the prize in economics.
There you have it. Possibly Nakamoto could go public with his or her real identity, but thus far the cryptocurrency innovator has been comfortable as the Banksy of the economic system.
Since publishing “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” in May 2009, many have tried to track Nakamoto down, and there are some who believe the name is a stand-in for a group rather than an individual.
Newsweek claimed to have found him in Temple City, California in 2014, but that 64-year-old Nakamoto claimed he had nothing to do with the coins.
So unless someone unmasks, there’s no way this award is going to the Bitcoin architect(s).
