Topic: Satoshi Nakamoto Nominated for Nobel Prize in Economics (For Real) (Read 337 times)

I am completely serious in suggesting Satoshi Nakamoto for the Prize. The invention of bitcoin -- a digital currency -- is nothing short of revolutionary. Many physical currencies have been used historically -- from beads, sea-shells to precious metals such as gold or silver, to even consumables such as cigarettes in times of hyperinflations, to sports cards. Paper money, or what is formally known as Fiat currencies, are what are now ubiquitous all over the world with different regions and countries issuing their own currencies for facilitating trade and exchange.

Bitcoin, the currency, sometimes referred to as Digital Gold, on the other hand is digital and exists purely as a mathematical object. It offers many advantages over both physical and paper currencies. It is secure, relying on almost unbreakable cryptographic code, can be divided into millions of smaller sub-units, and can be transferred securely and nearly instantaneously from one person to any other person in the world with access to internet bypassing governments, central banks and financial intermediaries such as Visa, Mastercard, Paypal or commercial banks eliminating time delays and transactions costs.

But beyond demonstrating the possibility of creating a reliable digital currency, Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin Protocol has spawned exciting innovations in the FinTech space by showing how many financial contracts -- not just currencies -- can be digitized, securely verified and stored, and transferred instantaneously from one party to another. The implications of this are immense. This will likely create an open, decentralized, public infrastructure for moving both money -- as Stellar.org is trying to create - as well as other smart contracts -- as Ethereum.org is attempting to foster -- as easily as email but with security and nearly zero transactions costs. The cover and a lead story in the October 31, 2015 issue of the Economist magazine explain this well and in some detail.

Not only will Satoshi Nakamoto's contribution change the way we think about money, it is likely to upend the role central banks play in conducting monetary policy, destroy high-cost money transfer services such as Western Union, eliminate the 2-4% transactions tax imposed by intermediaries such as Visa, MasterCard and Paypal, eliminate the time-consuming and expensive notary and escrow services and indeed transform the landscape of legal contracts completely. Many industries such as Banking, Finance, Law will see a big upheaval. The consumers will be big beneficiaries and indeed the poor and marginal sections of the society will reap the benefits of financial and social inclusion in the coming decades. 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.