Evolutionist,
If all you read is legacy media, you have probably come across the repeated claims that Bitcoin consumes excessive energy. Maybe you have read how Bitcoin alone will push humanity over the two degrees Celsius limit on global warming or how Bitcoin consumes more power than an entire country. If you didn’t know any better, Bitcoin was on its way to destroying the world.
However, there is a form of energy rarely discussed in legacy media concerning Bitcoin: human energy. That is the energy you and I use every day to produce goods and services. Human energy is measured by time and effort, and effort is nothing more than another way of saying proof-of-work.
The modern day social contract consists of going to work in exchange for money. I sacrifice my time and energy for an agreed upon wage. This is where we get the notion of time equals money… but is the inverse true? Does money equal time?
When I worked in hotels, a paycheck was given to me every two weeks for all the hours of effort I put in. I used the money to purchase goods to survive, like shelter, food, water, clothing, etc. However, as I continued to work longer and harder, I noticed that money doesn’t buy as much as it did when I was growing up. Why?
What exactly is money? This is a question that I never really asked myself growing up? Like most of us, I thought money was the dollars I saw on my paycheck. I just wanted to earn as many dollars as possible to ensure a comfortable life. I never questioned the dollar’s value, and why would I? It’s not like I was presented with alternatives.
The US Dollar is a FIAT currency backed by the US Government. Not by gold, not by oil, not by anything tangible or valuable, just by the word and power of the US Government. When a currency is not backed by anything, it can be printed out of thin air, a practice that governments have abused multiple times in history. We again find ourselves in those times.
Listen to Neel Kashkari, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, as he explains infinite money in the dollar system in this 60 minutes clip.
Listen to Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, as he also speaks about infinite money. When asked where the money comes from, he admits that THEY just print it.
If dollars can be printed without sacrificing time or energy, are they really worth anything? Do dollars equal time, or do dollars not equal anything? If the system is flushed with cash whenever the people in power want, are the dollars I earn worthless? Have my time and energy been devalued? Shouldn’t my human energy be worth something?
Human energy means time and effort, proof-of-work, so shouldn’t I want money representing all that energy? Shouldn’t I want money that can store that energy?
It’s only fair that my human energy should be worth something and paid in a currency that holds its value. Like my ancestors who worked for gold, I should also work for something humans can’t just make out of thin air. After much consideration, I have concluded that Bitcoin is the only currency that offers me this protection.
Like gold, Bitcoin cannot be created out of thin air. Computers consume time and energy to produce proof-of-work and create blocks to unlock bitcoins. The owners of these computers, typically called miners, are running a business, consuming time and energy to make bitcoins, thus giving them value. This restores the idea that time equals money, but more importantly, money also equals time.
Additionally, Bitcoin has a controlled supply of 21 million coins, preventing the currency from being diluted. Some unelected bureaucrats can’t create bitcoins at a central bank or government office because they think it’s a good idea. They can’t just bail out some people while diluting others.
My human energy is rewarded and protected by a currency backed by time, proof-of-work, and a fixed supply schedule. Bitcoin restores the value of human energy that FIAT currencies have distorted in the previous decades. Bitcoin protects my labor, protects me as a worker, and ensures I sacrifice my time and energy for something real.
Pay me in Bitcoin!