And the Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Bitcoin Is…

It is often said that Satoshi Nakamoto should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for the invention of bitcoin—the first absolutely scarce digital asset that solves the double-spend problem and allows anyone for the first time to transmit value rather than just information digitally. (For those who like precision, there is actually no Nobel Prize in economics. It is The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which was established after Alfred Nobel’s death and is awarded according to the same principles as the Nobel Prizes.)

Sadly, the Nobel Prize has not been forthcoming (yet!) for Satoshi. This is the time of year when Nobel Prizes are announced, and that led me to wish for the establishment of a Nobel Prize in Bitcoin. Logically, Satoshi would be the first winner. But who would be the winner for 2024?

I’ve read many books about bitcoin and bitcoin history and have even spent a good bit of time poring over the forums where Satoshi introduced his invention to the world. Even so, I don’t have a comprehensive view of the history of bitcoin. So I did what we all do when we need a more comprehensive perspective on a subject. I asked ChatGPT.

How are Nobel Prizes chosen? They are awarded to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humanity in the area of the prize. This time restriction creates a very narrow window for identifying a contribution, which has sometimes led to embarrassing awards for contributions that were later discredited. As a result of these experiences, the Nobel Committees now interpret “the preceding year” as the year when the full impact of the contribution has become evident.

So, in brief, a Nobel Prize in Bitcoin would recognize those who have conferred the greatest benefit to humanity in the area of bitcoin whose contribution has become evident in the preceding year.

I asked ChatGPT to flesh this out a bit. After some dialogue, I was a little concerned that ChatGPT would prioritize academic contributions. This seemed contrary to the ethos of bitcoin, where anyone can participate and contribute without any credentials whatsoever. We don’t even know who Satoshi is, much less care about his academic credentials. So I instructed ChatGPT to downplay academic criteria. These were the criteria we arrived at:

• Technological Innovation: Contributions that introduce practical advancements or solutions to bitcoin’s infrastructure, scalability, or security
• Economic and Financial Impact: Efforts that drive widespread adoption, improve financial inclusion, or address real-world economic problems through bitcoin
• Social and Humanitarian Impact: Contributions that use bitcoin to empower individuals, promote freedom, or challenge authoritarianism and censorship
• Sustainability and Energy Use: Innovations that reduce bitcoin's environmental footprint or promote the use of renewable energy in mining
• Vision and Ethical Leadership: Achievements in ethical leadership and visionary thinking that advance bitcoin’s core principles and long-term success

This seemed like a reasonable set of criteria for a Nobel Prize in Bitcoin—comprehensive enough to cover many different kinds of benefits to humanity and specific enough to focus in on concrete contributions.

Having agreed on the criteria for this prestigious award, I asked ChatGPT to name the recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Bitcoin. If this had been a real Nobel Prize, that individual (or group of up to three individuals or an organization) would receive 11M Swedish kronor, which amounts to approximately $1M USD. Perhaps one day a Nobel Prize in Bitcoin will be established and the award will be paid in the money that most benefits humanity—bitcoin—in keeping with the principles of the award itself. For now we have to content ourselves with conferring honor and respect.

And the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Bitcoin is…

Robin Linus (for his work on BitVM, pioneering the concept of trust-minimized rollups on bitcoin, expanding the possibilities of building securely on bitcoin without altering its core layer)

Here is some background ChatGPT gave on Robin Linus that provides a solid justification for this choice:

• Pioneering Trust-Minimized Rollups on Bitcoin: By conceptualizing and demonstrating BitVM, Linus has opened new doors for rollup technology, traditionally seen on other blockchains, to bitcoin. This innovation could enable more complex applications on bitcoin without altering its base layer, paving the way for DeFi, smart contracts, and more advanced dApps in a bitcoin-native environment.
• Expanding Bitcoin’s Use Cases and Ecosystem: BitVM has garnered extensive interest from developers and users eager to see bitcoin’s utility expand beyond a store of value. Linus’s work aligns with a growing movement to make bitcoin a more versatile platform while preserving its conservative, security-first approach.
• Catalyzing Developer Interest and New Opportunities: BitVM has generated a surge of developer activity and ideas around bitcoin, inspiring potential applications and frameworks that could be crucial to bitcoin’s scalability and extensibility in the long term.

Linus seems like a logical choice, having catalyzed a massive resurgence of interest in development in the bitcoin ecosystem. The timing makes sense, since interest and activity surrounding Layer-2 solutions have taken a leap forward in the past year after the public announcement of BitVM.

Congratulations, Robin Linus! You are this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Bitcoin.

We couldn’t stop there, of course. I’m sure you’d like to know who won the award for previous years. So I asked ChatGPT to name those winners as well, along with the reason for the award. Here they are, beginning with the first award going to Satoshi in 2009:

2009: Satoshi Nakamoto

• For creating bitcoin and publishing the bitcoin whitepaper, which introduced the world to decentralized, peer-to-peer digital cash and a new monetary paradigm

2010: Hal Finney

• For being the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto and his early contributions to bitcoin development, including code improvements and advocacy

2011: Gavin Andresen

• For his role as lead developer of bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto stepped away, ensuring the survival and growth of the network through key updates and improvements

2012: Pieter Wuille

• For his technical innovations, including the creation of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) and work on Segregated Witness (SegWit), enhancing bitcoin’s scalability and efficiency

2013: Roger Ver

• For his tireless advocacy and early investment in bitcoin businesses, earning him the nickname "Bitcoin Jesus" for promoting bitcoin adoption worldwide

2014: Andreas Antonopoulos

• For his outstanding contributions to educating the public about bitcoin through books, talks, and his advocacy for open-source financial sovereignty

2015: Nick Szabo

• For his early work on cryptographic technologies and the concept of smart contracts, which influenced the development of bitcoin and other blockchain technologies

2016: Adam Back

• For his creation of Hashcash, the proof-of-work system that became integral to bitcoin mining, and for his ongoing contributions through Blockstream and bitcoin infrastructure

2017: The Bitcoin Core Development Team

• For their collective work on Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation, a major upgrade that improved bitcoin’s scalability, efficiency, and transaction throughput

2018: Elizabeth Stark

• For her leadership in promoting and advancing the Lightning Network, a Layer-2 solution aimed at scaling bitcoin for fast and low-cost transactions

2019: Changpeng Zhao (CZ)

• For his role in creating Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which played a pivotal role in expanding bitcoin adoption globally

2020: Jack Dorsey

• For integrating bitcoin into Square and Cash App, facilitating bitcoin’s use for millions and supporting the development of the Lightning Network and open-source bitcoin projects

2021: Michael Saylor

• For leading MicroStrategy to adopt bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, inspiring other corporations and institutions to invest in bitcoin as part of their financial strategy

2022: Jack Mallers

• For his work with Strike and his role in promoting bitcoin adoption in El Salvador, helping make bitcoin legal tender and promoting its use for remittances and payments

2023: Paul Sztorc

• For his development of Drivechain (BIP 300/301), which allows for sidechains on bitcoin, contributing to the extensibility and future flexibility of the bitcoin network

If you’re like me, you probably see a few on this list that you disagree with and some others that you believe were overlooked. I decided not to tweak the criteria to fine-tune results that I liked. I figure that a real-world human committee would take a fairly broad view and would probably choose just as many controversial recipients as ChatGPT. So I leave it there.

What will happen in 2025 and beyond? Perhaps future awards will be given to developers of Layer-2 solutions like BitcoinOS or Ark that offer greater programmability and scalability. Maybe awards will recognize better strategies for custody or lower-friction onboarding that speed adoption to the masses. As bitcoin continues its journey toward global money and possibly a global reserve asset, it will become more evident that bitcoin will be a tremendous benefit to humanity. Perhaps a real-life Nobel Prize or something like it will be established to recognize the many heroes who will arise along this journey.