A professor of finance at the University of California- Los Angeles (UCLA), Bhagwan Chowdhry, wants to nominate Bitcoin 's unknown creator(s), Satoshi Nakamoto , for the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Chowdhry expressed his thoughts in an article on Huffington Post. He was recently invited by the Prize committee to nominate a candidate for the 2016 Prize.
The idea would seem to be a strange one since Satoshi's work does not appear in any scholarly publications, and we don't even know who he is. All we know is that he supposedly developed Bitcoin's code and authored its 9-page white paper following a 2009 posting on the web.
"Am I being somewhat whimsical in nominating a complete outsider, Satoshi Nakamoto, for Economics Prize just as perhaps Romain Rolland was when he nominated, Sigmund Freud for the Nobel Prize in 1936 - not in Medicine but - in Literature," writes Chowdhry.
However, he argues, Bitcoin is an invention so significant for the economy that it cannot be overlooked. He goes on to list a plethora of areas that Bitcoin, and technologies inspired by it, can disrupt. "Many industries such as Banking, Finance, Law will see a big upheaval," he says.
"I can barely think of another innovation in Economic and Finance in the last several decades whose influence surpasses the welfare increases that will be engendered by Satoshi Nakamoto's brilliant, path-breaking invention. That is why I am nominating him for the Nobel Prize in Economics."
As to the logistical problems posed by Satoshi's anonymity, Chowdhry is not worried. Normally, the Prize committee obtains the awardee's phone number and contacts him/her. Satoshi can be contacted via the internet. "If he accepts the award, he can verifiably communicate his acceptance."
(Editor's note: Some have speculated that Satoshi is in fact a group of individuals. This may not be an issue either, as a number of husband-wife combinations have won the prize in the past...)
What about the speech? "That won't be any problem either. He can write his speech, digitally sign it and send it to me securely. I would, of course, rehearse and deliver it on his behalf at the Prize ceremony."
Finally, there's the issue of the prize money. The solution is simple. Send Satoshi his prize money in bitcoin, to the address known to be under his control, or to another he specifies. Alternatively, Chowdhry says, "only if he wants, the committee could also transfer the prize money to my bitcoin address."
