SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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, Interesting) by emg on Friday August 29 2014, @07:03PM
The cryonicists I knew thought it was more likely that someone would scan and upload their brain into a computer than actually restore their body. But, given a few centuries of technological progress, neither seems too improbable.
Of course, IMHO, the most likely reason someone would invest the time to reanimate you is because they think you'd make a neat pet.
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Friday August 29 2014, @09:01PM
I'm not going to be anyone's pet, basilisk or otherwise.