In what came as no surprise, a Professor of Finance, Bhagwan Chowdhry, announced that he would nominate the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, for the Nobel Prize in Economics. With how the Bitcoin protocol and its underlying blockchain-technology shows huge promise in effecting change in economics and fintech the lambent afterglow of Satoshi’s creation continues to grow in mindshare.

ZapChain is continuing the fine tradition of connecting bitcoin with digital music via a partnership with Coinbase and hip hop recording artist Talib Kweli. This follows other recording artists such as Imogen Heap’s interest in the technology and Toby Ganger’s Welcome to the Blockchain.

Bitcoin exchange Coinarch is shutting down at the end of November. Users of the exchange should read below for details.

Also important news for Canada, Quadriga is setting up a Blockchain R&D Lab, the first in the country. The company seeks to explore uses for the blockchain for Internet of Things solutions as well as for the fintech industry as a way to mitigate financial crime.

Satoshi Nakamoto nominated for Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize is an amazing achievement for any member of the academic community and is extremely prestigious. So, when last week Bhagwan Chowdhry, Professor of Finance at UCLA Anderson School, tweeted his support for nominating the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel—popularly known as the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences–it was a fairly big deal.

Why I am nominating Satoshi Nakamoto for the #NobelPrize in Economics https://t.co/iEYdyRslJp #bitcoin @StellarOrg @ethereumproject

— Bhagwan Chowdhry (@bhagwanUCLA) November 6, 2015

To explain his reasoning, Chowdhry took to the Huffington Post in an article entitled “I (Shall Happily) Accept the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics on Behalf of Satoshi Nakamoto.”

The nomination of Satoshi, however, may face a number of obstacles for the Nobel Prize. The least of which is the sheer anonymous nature of the inventor of the Bitcoin protocol: not only does nobody know who Satoshi is (he or she), there has been evidence put forward that Satoshi could be in fact a group of people. There are strong reasons to believe that Satoshi is a fictional person and he has certainly gathered a great deal of cultural mythology.

The second problem is that ordinarily nominations for Nobel Prize winners are kept confidential for 50 years after the prizes are awarded. “Nomination to the Prize in Economic Sciences is by invitation only,” reads the FAQ on the Nobel Prize. “The names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later.”

Chowdhry has expressed his hope that one of his colleagues, whom necessarily would be invited to provide nomination, would therefore confidentially submit Satoshi’s name.

Bhagwan Chowdhry is an advocate against financial poverty and to this end founded the Financial Access at Birth program aimed at combating global poverty at a young age. Image source: Chowdhry’s Twitter profile.

On the matter of the confidentiality, CoinDesk contacted Göran K. Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who indicated that the rules violation would have to be discussed.

“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences requests that nominations for the Economics Prize are kept secret. This is clearly stated in the invitation letters sent to nominators,” Hansson told CoinDesk. The Prize Committee will now discuss the specific issue.”

ZapChain partners with Coinbase and Talib Kweli to sell digital music for bitcoin

Bitcoin-payment forum and community ZapChain just announced an expansion of its vision through a partnership with San Francisco-based bitcoin wallet Coinbase and recording artist Talib Kweli. This partnership will enable ZapChain users to purchase Kweli’s music on ZapChain for bitcoin.

INDIE 500 from Talib Kweli in collaboration with 9th Wonder. Image courtesy of Talib Kweli.

Kweli is a popular, chart-topping hip hop artist whose most popular albums include  2004’s A Beautiful Struggle and 2007’s Eardrum.  His latest album, Indie 500 in collaboration with fellow artist 9th Wonder, released on November 6, will be available on ZapChain for $12 (approximately 38,000 bits or 0.038 bitcoins). Individual tracks sell for $1.29 (approximately 4,100 bits or 0.041 bitcoins).

Kweli is an activist who sees bitcoin, and similar digital currencies, as a statement about global inclusion.

“We believe in doing the music that we love and getting it to the people that love it, no matter where you are or who you are,” said Kweli.

ZapChain as a community provides an interesting incentive for participation: members can post bounties for questions-answered using bitcoins (by offering a number of bits as reward). Instead of upvotes or likes, members can be awarded tiny amounts of bitcoins. The rewards are generally small, but enough participation adds up.

The company also announced that it has raised $350,000 in venture capital to date from Tim Draper, Adam Draper and the Boost Bitcoin Fund.

Coinarch is closing its doors

Bitcoin exchange Coinarch is closing down end of November and is urging current users to contact their support team in order to get their funds off the service safely.

Over the weekend users of the exchange received this email:

Coinarch is closing down

Thanks for the journey!

We’re sad to inform you that Coinarch will be shutting down. We’ve loved every minute of the last 18 months and thank you for joining us on our journey. We value your support.

You will be able to access your account up until the end of November. Please use this time to close your open positions and send your funds to your external wallet.

Don’t stress if you forget to withdraw before the end of November. You will be able to email support until the end of the year – we’ll process your request manually.

Please contact support should you have any issues with your account. We will work with you closely to resolve any issues you may have.

Please note withdraws from the platform will be processed within 48 hours of receiving your request. Of course, please contact support if you experience a delay beyond this time. Please also note that all of your open positions will be automatically closed at the end of November and any balance in your USD wallet will be transferred to your BTC wallet at the prevailing bitcoin price.

We hope you’ve enjoyed trading on our platform and profited from bitcoin trading. Thanks again and best of luck for your future endeavours.

Long live bitcoin!!!

The Coinarch Team

In spite of this news going out to Coinarch users, the company’s website and much of its social media of the company have not reflected this change in operations. Coinarch’s Facebook page, however, does have a short post acknowledging the impending shutdown.

“Yes, we are shutting down,” Mark Hergott, co-founder of Coinarch told SiliconANGLE in an email. “We are advising users to contact support so that we can work with them to close down their account and withdraw any bitcoins they hold on the platform.”

If you are a user of Coinarch, contact the support team today to make sure you close out your account and withdraw your funds.

Artwork from Spells of Genesis, “Blockchain”, courtesy of EverdreamSoft

Quadriga Canadian Blockchain R&D Lab opens for business

Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp. has become the first company to launch a Canadian blockchain R&D lab. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the lab intends to focus its first projects on leveraging blockchain technology with two core functions: “handling the onboarding and client data management for financial crime systems using the Blockchain and facilitating machine to machine (M2M) payments with Internet of Things (IoT) providers for connected cities.”

“Blockchain technology has an unchangeable, fully traceable ledger of activity and as such, represents a crucial innovation for financial technology,” said Gerald Cotten, CEO of Quadriga, “particularly for systems designed to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud.”

Quadriga is the company behind one of Canada’s longest running bitcoin exchanges, QuadrigaCX.com, which has been operating in the Bitcoin space since December 2013. The company has continued to expand its efforts to colonize the bitcoin fintech ecosystem to become the world’s first publicly traded bitcoin exchange in April 2015, trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE/CNSX) with the ticker symbol “XBT.”

To build the blockchain R&D lab, Quadriga brought Christine Duhaime on board. She is a leading legal expert in digital finance and financial crime law and a leader in FinTech in Canada. Duhaime is credited with the foundation of the Digital Finance Institute.

Image credit: Bitcoin Logo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/12350379324.