About the Finney Prize
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.
Message from Fran Finney
Laureates
Finney Prizes will be given out on halvings at these block heights
210,000
420,000
630,000
840,000
1,050,000
1,260,000
1,470,000
1,680,000
1,890,000
2,100,000
2,310,000
2,520,000
2,730,000
2,940,000
3,150,000
+18 more
Bitcoin Treasury
HRF endowed the Finney Freedom Prize with 33 BTC. The first Prize has been distributed. The rest of the treasury is publicly verifiable.
Genesis Committee
The Genesis Committee will nominate Finney Prize Laureates for the 2012 – 2016, 2016 – 2020, and 2020 – 2024 eras. Those Laureates will be announced on Running Bitcoin day in 2025, 2026, and 2027.
Each member of the Genesis Committee will nominate a successor, and the new Committee will work to nominate the Laureate for that era, which will be announced on the halving day in 2028. The process will proceed in this fashion until the final halving, when the subsidy disappears, which will mark the final Finney Prize.
