Topic: Finney Freedom Prize (Read 153 times)
I'm so thankful for Hal and proud of Greg and Pieter for winning the award. There's lots of pessimism around Bitcoin, but this is a truly uplifting effort.
The human right foundation not long ago awarded Greg Maxwell and Pieter Wuille the Finney Freedom Prize winner for the 2012-2016 era, as regards to the Bitcoin's block height 210,000 to 420,00, the both were selected out of a shortlist that included Roya Mahboob, Andreas Antonopoulos, and Ross Ulbricht.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/press-releases/pieter-wuille-and-gregory-maxwell-receive-the-finney-freedom-prize-
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/press-releases/pieter-wuille-and-gregory-maxwell-receive-the-finney-freedom-prize-
And here is @Greg Maxwell official acceptance speech,
Quote
I received private notice of this from Fran a month ago and--once I determined that it wasn't an elaborate spear phishing attack-- was absolutely bowled over by it.
Hal was an inspiration to me long before Bitcoin existed-- I'd corresponded with him some about his RPOW digital cash system back in 2004, including discussions for adding what support for what we'd now call hash-locked contracts. I was really excited about RPOW and went around online promoting it, but outside of a few niche cypherpunky areas there didn't just seem to be that much interest in digital cash.
Of course, that was prior to 2008 it was still a boom time when far fewer were interested in questioning how our financial machinery worked and the state of the art hadn't yet advanced to Bitcoin's level of decentralization or economics (...Hal's system was inflationary). Not so many years later things were very different, and while I might still be a weirdo for thinking this stuff is important, I'm certainly no longer a lone weirdo.
So I find it particularly humbling to be receive an award in Hal's name and I'm honored to share it with Pieter Wuille, who I've considered a treasured collaborator and dear friend for all these years.
Part of what makes Bitcoin -- or really any money-- work is that it enables collaboration between people with different interests and different backgrounds. You don't need to share politics with someone to engage in mutually beneficial trade with them, and with Bitcoin you don't need to share a nationality, a language, a geography, system of law, etc. more than ever before.
But the fact that so many people come to bitcoin with different goals and gain different benefits from it can sometimes overshadow some the earliest motivation for Bitcoin: Money and free expression in the form of commerce "secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what" -- just like strong cryptography has provided for our files.
I'm proud to have contributed to a system that helps people freely to collaborate with others, and I think HRF's efforts to bring attention to the importance and impact of the freedom and privacy elements of Bitcoin are important so that these original motivations don't fall out of the limelight amid all the other reasons to find Bitcoin interesting.
Hal was an inspiration to me long before Bitcoin existed-- I'd corresponded with him some about his RPOW digital cash system back in 2004, including discussions for adding what support for what we'd now call hash-locked contracts. I was really excited about RPOW and went around online promoting it, but outside of a few niche cypherpunky areas there didn't just seem to be that much interest in digital cash.
Of course, that was prior to 2008 it was still a boom time when far fewer were interested in questioning how our financial machinery worked and the state of the art hadn't yet advanced to Bitcoin's level of decentralization or economics (...Hal's system was inflationary). Not so many years later things were very different, and while I might still be a weirdo for thinking this stuff is important, I'm certainly no longer a lone weirdo.
So I find it particularly humbling to be receive an award in Hal's name and I'm honored to share it with Pieter Wuille, who I've considered a treasured collaborator and dear friend for all these years.
Part of what makes Bitcoin -- or really any money-- work is that it enables collaboration between people with different interests and different backgrounds. You don't need to share politics with someone to engage in mutually beneficial trade with them, and with Bitcoin you don't need to share a nationality, a language, a geography, system of law, etc. more than ever before.
But the fact that so many people come to bitcoin with different goals and gain different benefits from it can sometimes overshadow some the earliest motivation for Bitcoin: Money and free expression in the form of commerce "secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what" -- just like strong cryptography has provided for our files.
I'm proud to have contributed to a system that helps people freely to collaborate with others, and I think HRF's efforts to bring attention to the importance and impact of the freedom and privacy elements of Bitcoin are important so that these original motivations don't fall out of the limelight amid all the other reasons to find Bitcoin interesting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1hy8bc8/comment/m6fxu8u/
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Thanks for sharing this with us, OP, which at least I didn't know, and thanks also to Accardo and tbct_mt2 for the complementary information. Remembering Hal's story makes me a little sad because of his illness and how young he died but as life goes on and we have to look forward, I am glad that this award is given in his name.
It is nice to see Hal Finney memorial awards. You can see the nominees chosen for these four years, so I hope that someone from the forum will be on the list of nominees for the award next time.
There are other initiatives to recognize contributions of Hal Finney like following.Finney is one of Bitcoin units.
[Did you know?] Bitcoin Table of Units
About him.
Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney)
Running Bitcoin on 11 January 2009.
Hal Finney Was Not Satoshi Nakamoto.
The human right foundation not long ago awarded Greg Maxwell and Pieter Wuille the Finney Freedom Prize winner for the 2012-2016 era, as regards to the Bitcoin's block height 210,000 to 420,00, the both were selected out of a shortlist that included Roya Mahboob, Andreas Antonopoulos, and Ross Ulbricht.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/press-releases/pieter-wuille-and-gregory-maxwell-receive-the-finney-freedom-prize-
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/press-releases/pieter-wuille-and-gregory-maxwell-receive-the-finney-freedom-prize-
It's such an awe inspiring thing for Hal to say that computers are a tool for liberation and not repression, only goes to show what kind of optimist he is to us, it's awesome that his legacy lives on too through these prizes and I love the idea that this will eventually become like that of a Nobel Prize where it's not just 2 areas that we're talking about, that we're also going to bitcoin literature and the other stuff that's present in a Nobel Prize. It's also a good thing that they've chosen to award people with 1 bitcoin, there's no way that you'd want to miss out on that prize if you know that you can get that as a reward too.
I have the same hopes too that we might see people from the forum getting nominated at the least for an award, it's going to explode the popularity of the forum if there's some chance one member of this forum becomes a nominee if not a winner, we'd see new generations of forum users that will make the community even bigger.
I have the same hopes too that we might see people from the forum getting nominated at the least for an award, it's going to explode the popularity of the forum if there's some chance one member of this forum becomes a nominee if not a winner, we'd see new generations of forum users that will make the community even bigger.
Quote
In 2024, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) created the Finney Freedom Prize with the blessing and approval of Fran Finney, wife and partner of the civil liberties advocate, software developer, and Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney.
The Finney Freedom Prize will be awarded to the person who does the most for Bitcoin and human rights in each halving era. Hal thought that the computer could be a tool to liberate people, not to repress them. He was a pioneer of digital privacy and electronic cash systems, and eventually stood alongside Satoshi Nakamoto to help develop Bitcoin in its earliest days. The Prize was created to honor Hal for his lifelong dedication to digital liberty, and to recognize those who, like him, strive to help make Bitcoin a better tool for freedom.
The Prize will come in two parts: first, a physical award, and second, a monetary prize of 1 BTC / 100,000,000 satoshis.
The Finney Freedom Prize will be awarded to the person who does the most for Bitcoin and human rights in each halving era. Hal thought that the computer could be a tool to liberate people, not to repress them. He was a pioneer of digital privacy and electronic cash systems, and eventually stood alongside Satoshi Nakamoto to help develop Bitcoin in its earliest days. The Prize was created to honor Hal for his lifelong dedication to digital liberty, and to recognize those who, like him, strive to help make Bitcoin a better tool for freedom.
The Prize will come in two parts: first, a physical award, and second, a monetary prize of 1 BTC / 100,000,000 satoshis.
https://hrf.org/finney-prize/about-the-prize/
It is nice to see Hal Finney memorial awards. You can see the nominees chosen for these four years, so I hope that someone from the forum will be on the list of nominees for the award next time.
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