Although UCLA Professor Bhagwan Chowdhry chose to nominate the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, for the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, it appears The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will not consider the nomination unless the legendary Nakamoto were to reveal his identity.

The organization’s press officer, Hans Reuterskiöld, told Inverse.com that the prize is never awarded anonymously nor after someone has died.

The prize, as in this instance, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is never awarded anonymously nor posthumously.

Commentary

The community may find this unfortunate, in that Satoshi Nakamoto should be recognized for his innovation. Then again, Satoshi unmasking himself would most likely open him up to a host of legal inquiries from displeased governments around the world at the behest of central bankers, whose business model has been threatened significantly thanks to Bitcoin. There is now an alternative that requires no state, no intermediary, and no identification – a digital gold.

But the whole episode raises the question: would it be fair to credit Satoshi entirely with the creation of Bitcoin? After all, Satoshi himself would surely freely admit that he was not the first with the idea, nor even the first to try and implement it. He was the first to do it successfully, and it would seem that the success of the experiment is still too early to judge. Bitcoin today is far from the reserve currency of the world many of us dream it will one day be.

This is not to imply that Satoshi should not be recognized by financial and scientific experts as an innovator, even a genius. Bitcoin has invaded the popular consciousness and even become a substitute for religion, in a way, for some. Its uses have yet to be fully explored, and it packs such a punch that even the most insulated and secure Wall Street banksters are making concessions regarding it. Remittance profiteers are faced with the competition they’d never have envisioned in their worst nightmares.

The hunt for Satoshi will hopefully never end, and baiting him with a Nobel prize will likely prove to be a failed tactic.

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