Some bitcoin enthusiasts have used their cryptocurrency to travel around the world. Others have spent it on a trip to space. But the very earliest user of bitcoin (after its inventor Satoshi Nakamoto himself) has now spent his crypto coins on the most ambitious mission yet: to visit the future.
Hal Finney, the renowned cryptographer, coder, and bitcoin pioneer, died Thursday morning at the age of 58 after five years battling ALS. He will be remembered for a remarkable career that included working as the number-two developer on the groundbreaking encryption software PGP in the early 1990s, creating one of the first “remailers” that presaged the anonymity software Tor, and—more than a decade later—becoming one of the first programmers to work on bitcoin’s open source code; in 2008, he received the very first bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto.
Now Finney has become an early adopter of a far more science fictional technology: human cryopreservation, the process of freezing human bodies so that they can be revived decades or even centuries later.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Friday August 29 2014, @06:07PM
We routinely freeze and unfreeze unicellular living things.
Therefore, all you need is a good scalpel now, and a big LEGO-like reassembly manual post-defrost.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday August 29 2014, @07:05PM
That should be simple. We just need to number them!
Do be sure to get someone who can count higher than 3, though. That would be... problematic.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:06AM
One cell, perhaps even a few cells may work. But not complex mammals :P