The Nash equilibrium featured in the Beautiful Mind movie. It is one of the foundational concepts in game theory. The reality of the Nash equilibrium of a game can be tested using experimental economics methods.
Game theorists use the Nash equilibrium concept to analyze the outcome of the strategic interaction of several decision makers. In other words, it provides a way of predicting what will happen if several people or several institutions are making decisions at the same time, and if the outcome depends on the decisions of the others. The simple insight underlying John Nash’s idea is that one cannot predict the result of the choices of multiple decision makers if one analyzes those decisions in isolation. Instead, one must ask what each player would do, taking into account the decision-making of the others.
Nash equilibrium has been used to analyze hostile situations like war and arms races (prisoner’s dilemma), and also how conflict may be mitigated by repeated interaction (tit-for-tat). It has also been used to study to what extent people with different preferences can cooperate (battle of the sexes), and whether they will take risks to achieve a cooperative outcome (see stag hunt). It has been used to study the adoption of technical standards,and also the occurrence of bank runs and currency crises (see coordination game). Other applications include traffic flow (Wardrop’s principle), how to organize auctions (see auction theory), the outcome of efforts exerted by multiple parties in the education process, regulatory legislation such as environmental regulations (tragedy of the Commons), natural resource management, analysing strategies in marketing, and even penalty kicks in football (matching pennies).
Bitcoin, altcoins and blockchains should have trillions of dollars of impact on the world economy. Blockchains will make supplies chains and logistics more efficient.
The Nobel prize for economics is currently worth 9 million Swedish kronor is $1.07 million or 154 bitcoin.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown person or people who designed bitcoin and created its original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database. In the process they were the first to solve the double-spending problem for digital currency. They were active in the development of bitcoin up until December 2010.
Because of the secret identity and the controversy over bitcoin, it seems unlikely that a Nobel prize will be awarded for cryptocurrency or blockchain.
The blockchain inventor(s) will have to console themselves with 980,000 bitcoins which are currently worth about 6300+ Nobel prizes.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.