Today, day of the fourth Halving bitcoinhe Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced the Finney Freedom Awardwhich commemorates the work of Hal Finney, one of the first public advocates of bitcoin.
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HRF today launches the Finney Freedom Prize in honor of Hal Finney, an advocate for privacy, open source software and electronic cash
The 1 btc Award Celebrates Those Doing the Most for bitcoin and Freedom in Every Halving Era
Let it inspire many more Halshttps://t.co/Zv6MagooUW pic.twitter.com/X4EqMEeIoM
– Alex Gladstein (@gladstein) twitter.com/gladstein/status/1781381967210229867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 19, 2024
The prize will be awarded to the individual or institution that does the most for bitcoin and human rights in each halving era, and the recipient will receive a monetary prize of 1 btc.
“We wanted to help inspire people to use bitcoin to promote human rights (to help more people achieve economic liberation around the world) and we thought that creating a prize that could be persistent throughout the initial life cycle of bitcoin would be one way to do it. “Alex Gladstein, director of strategy at the Human Rights Foundation, told bitcoin Magazine.
“The halving is a very important day. “It is something that anyone can celebrate, regardless of what country or situation they are in or who they are, and it is a good time to announce a bitcoin-related award,” he added.
The prize winner, or Laureate, for the 2009-2012 era is Hal Finney himself, and his 1 btc prize will go toward “causes that are important to Hal's family,” according to Gladstein.
HRF will work with the Finney family to appoint a seven-person “Genesis Committee” that will select honorees for the 2012-2016, 2016-2020 and 2020-2024 eras. Starting in the 2024-2028 era, a new committee will be formed to select the award winner.
A maximum of two Laureates may be selected for each season. In the event that two Laureates are chosen, each Laureate will receive 50 million satoshis (half of a bitcoin).
To be considered for the award, individuals or institutions must excel in the following areas:
- Educate a large number of people about bitcoin
- Demonstrating how people can exercise financial freedom by being their own bank using bitcoin
- Making notable contributions to the bitcoin codebase
- Help make bitcoin more accessible to the average person, especially those living under authoritarian regimes.
- Following in Hal's footsteps in championing digital privacy
A total of 33 Finney Freedom Awards will be awarded, one for each bitcoin halving era. The prize will be awarded until the 2130s, when the last bitcoin block is expected to be mined. The prize fund is publicly verifiable here.
So can we think of the Finney Freedom Prize as bitcoin's Nobel Prize?
“To the extent that the Nobel Peace Prize or the Nobel Prize in Economics inspires people, yes,” Gladstein told bitcoin magazine. “We want people to be inspired to be like Hal: to think about more than themselves and to expand this tool to make it accessible to more people.”
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