Today, on the day of the fourth Bitcoin halving<\/a>, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF)<\/a> announced the Finney Freedom Prize<\/a>, commemorating the work of Hal Finney, one of the earliest public champions of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

Today HRF launches the Finney Freedom Prize to honor Hal Finney, a champion of privacy, open-source software, and electronic cash<\/p>\n

The 1 BTC award celebrates those who do the most for Bitcoin and freedom each halving era<\/p>\n

Let it inspire many more Hals\u270c\ufe0fhttps:\/\/t.co\/Zv6MagooUW<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/X4EqMEeIoM<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alex Gladstein \ud83c\udf0b \u26a1 (@gladstein) April 19, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

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 award of 1 BTC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to help inspire people to use Bitcoin to advance human rights \u2014 to help more people achieve economic liberation around the world \u2014 and we thought that creating a prize that could be persistent throughout the early lifecycle of Bitcoin would be one way to do it,\u201d Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation, told Bitcoin Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe halving is a very important day. It\u2019s something that anyone can celebrate, regardless of what country or situation they\u2019re in or who they are, and it\u2019s a great time to announce a Bitcoin-related prize,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The prize winner, or Laureate, for the 2009-2012 era is Hal Finney himself, and his 1 BTC prize will go to \u201ccauses that matter to Hal\u2019s family,\u201d according to Gladstein.<\/p>\n

The HRF will work with the Finney family to appoint a seven-person \u201cGenesis Committee\u201d that will select Laureates for the 2012-2016, 2016-2020 and 2020-2024 eras. Starting with the 2024-2028 era, a new committee will be composed to select the winner of the award.<\/p>\n

A maximum of two Laureates can be selected for each era. In the event of two Laureates being chosen, each Laureate will receive 50 million satoshis (half of a bitcoin).<\/p>\n

To be considered for the prize, individuals or institutions must excel in the following areas:<\/p>\n

Educating large numbers of people about BitcoinDemonstrating how people can exercise financial freedom by being their own bank using BitcoinMaking notable contributions to Bitcoin\u2019s codebaseHelping to make Bitcoin more accessible to the average person, especially those living under authoritarian regimesFollowing in Hal\u2019s footsteps of advocating for digital privacy<\/p>\n

A total of 33 Finney Freedom Prizes will be awarded, one for each Bitcoin halving era. The prize will be awarded through the 2130s, when the last Bitcoin block is expected to be mined. The treasury for the award is publicly verifiable here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, can we think of the Finney Freedom Prize as the Nobel Prize of Bitcoin?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn as much as the Nobel Peace Prize or the Nobel Prize in Economics inspires people, yes,\u201d Gladstein told Bitcoin Magazine. \u201cWe want people to be inspired to be like Hal \u2014 to think about more than themselves and about expanding this tool so that it can be accessible to more people.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, on the day of the fourth Bitcoin halving, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced the Finney Freedom Prize, commemorating the work of Hal Finney, one of the earliest public champions of Bitcoin. Today HRF launches the Finney Freedom Prize to honor Hal Finney, a champion of privacy, open-source software, and electronic cash The 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crypto-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}