The Human Rights Foundation has declared that Hal Finney, a computer scientist and privacy advocate who played a key role in the development of Bitcoin 15 years ago, will posthumously receive the first ever Finney Freedom Prize in his honor.
This collection is part of CoinDesk’s “Future of Bitcoin” package.
Hal’s widow, Fran Finney, will accept the inaugural award and plans to donate the prize of 1 bitcoin (BTC) to a charity that will be announced at a later date. Hal Finney passed away in 2014, having battled ALS.
Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer of HRF, stated that the award is meant to recognize and honor those who make significant contributions to the advancement of Bitcoin.
“Obviously we can’t give it to Satoshi. So, the obvious choice then is Hal. Nobody else even comes close to his contributions,” Gladstein told CoinDesk in an interview. “He continued to code until his last days. I mean, he literally fought for human freedom until his muscles failed him.”
“Hal would have been immensely proud to witness the growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem and to learn that this once obscure software project is now used by millions of people around the world,” said Fran Finney in a pre-recorded acceptance speech. “He would be honored to be the first recipient of this award and humbled to have it named after him. I feel a great privilege and responsibility in accepting this award on his behalf.”
The Human Rights Foundation has set aside an additional 32 bitcoin, currently worth over $2 million, from their own treasury to fund future awards. “We believe that in 40 years, this will be the largest cash prize in the world,” Gladstein remarked.
For the next three years, a new laureate will be named on Jan. 10, also known as “Running Bitcoin Day,” the same day that Hal Finney announced on Twitter (now X) that he had become the first person, besides Satoshi Nakamoto, to download and use the Bitcoin software. After that, the awards will be presented at the time of each Bitcoin halving, which occurs approximately every four years. (The next halving is expected to take place within the next few hours from the time of publication.)
The first four awards, including Finney’s, are specifically meant to recognize and reward those who made the most significant contributions to Bitcoin between each of the first four halvings: 2009-2012 (Finney), 2012-2016, 2016-2020 and 2020-2024. Following that, the prize will be given to those who make the greatest contributions in the four years between each halving.
A “Genesis Committee” made up of seven individuals – including “The Genesis Book” author Aaron van Wirdum, Africa Bitcoin Conference founder Farida Nabourema, Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao, bitcoin++ and Base58 co-founder Lisa Neigut, Fedi founder Obi Nwosu, Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens and Running Bitcoin Challenge co-founder Vitus Zeller – have been chosen to lead the nomination process until 2028.
The committee members will then nominate their successors, who will each serve a four-year term.
“This award will stand the test of time,” Gladstein said, noting that the last Bitcoin halving is expected to take place sometime in the next century. “Hopefully, we can establish an intellectual lineage here that will continue for decades to come. The initial seven committee members will carefully select candidates who they believe truly embody their ideals, and we hope to have a committee in 100 years with a similar reflection of the original members.”
Who was Hal Finney?
Even if Hal Finney had never been introduced to Bitcoin through the Cypherpunk Mailing List, becoming the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction and contribute code to the project, he would still be remembered by the Bitcoin community for his numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and privacy advocacy.
Finney, a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, began making significant contributions to the foundational cryptographic communications tool Pretty Good Privacy (better known as PGP) in the early 1990s, and went on to work for the PGP Corp. until retirement. PGP remains one of the best methods for encrypting online communications to this day.
“The work we are doing here is dedicated to the goal of rendering Big Brother obsolete,” he wrote to a group of cryptographers at a time when the U.S. government was attempting to limit the public’s access to strong encryption.
Finney’s involvement with PGP led to his interest in digital currencies, which he believed could better protect individuals’ privacy than the increasingly prevalent payment options such as credit cards that dominated and still dominate the internet. In 2004, Finney developed a prototype digital asset utilizing a reusable proof-of-work system, which, though not widely adopted, would ultimately serve as inspiration for Bitcoin.
Four years later, when Satoshi released the Bitcoin white paper, Finney was one of only a few people to take notice. He responded publicly to Satoshi’s post on the cryptography mailing list, expressing his excitement and interest in seeing how the project would progress; he was also offered early access to the project’s source code.
From 2009 until 2013, when Finney revealed he was paralyzed on the BitcoinTalk forum, he made numerous critical contributions to the development of the Bitcoin software. Throughout his life, he was an avid marathon runner, often competing alongside his wife, Fran. In a 2009 blog post on Less Wrong, Finney wrote, “My ambition is to continue to contribute to open-source software projects even while confined to a disabled body.”
Some individuals believe that Hal Finney may have been Satoshi, or that he was part of a group that used the collective pseudonym. However, a recent post by Bitcoin pioneer Jameson Lopp disproves this theory, citing timestamp evidence that shows Finney was likely elsewhere when Satoshi was active online. Finney himself denied any involvement with the Satoshi Nakamoto name.
“We created this award not only as a way to recognize Hal’s contributions to Bitcoin, but also his dedication to digital privacy and freedom,” said Gladstein. “These are causes that are of utmost importance to us.”