Agreed, so why hasn’t anyone else tried to prove the energy of Bitcoin? Saying “backed by energy” is not enough, where’s the proof? Why isn’t anyone else trying to derive the equations for Joules (via Kelvin). Are we going to compare Bitcoin vs fiat forever? Or are we actually going to look at the energy?

The energy is proven every 10 minutes. It’s called hash rate. If you run a node, you see it directly — no equations required. Proof-of-Work is the measurement of real-world energy, not an academic theory of it.

The idea that “hash rate proves energy” is true, but only at the shallowest layer. Hash rate tells you that miners are doing work, but it doesn’t tell you what that work becomes. It’s essentially a speedometer, not the engine, and relying on it alone misses the physics that actually makes Proof-of-Work a measurement. The real proof comes from the structure of each block. Before a block is found, Bitcoin defines a finite thermodynamic field of possibilities: the miner must search a constrained probabilistic space set by the 32-bit nonce field and the network difficulty. That field is a real, physical entropy requirement, the amount of disorder that must be resolved to advance the chain by one unit of time. When a miner finally lands on a valid header, something deeper than “a hash was found” occurs. The entropy invested into the search (the heat dissipated/probabilistic work performed) collapses into the exact informational structure written inside the block. The UTXO set produced in that moment is not arbitrary; it is the specific, irreversible informational state that corresponds to the resolved entropy. This is where energy becomes memory. The block is the computed discrete isomorphism between the thermodynamic uncertainty applied to the world, and the informational certainty recorded inside the ledger. Hash rate alone doesn’t capture this relationship. The real proof of work is the successful mapping of heat (Boltzmann entropy) into structured, conserved information (Shannon entropy) via satoshis. That mapping is the block. It is the only moment where the universe acknowledges the energy spent, because that is the moment the information becomes permanent. The Kelvin dissipated in the mining process is tied to the informational mass of the block, conserved in the form of satoshi-denominated memory. This is what it means for Bitcoin to compute time: each block is a crystallized unit of irreversible thermodynamic history. So yes, hash rate shows that miners are working. But the block shows what the work becomes. The physics is not in the speed; it is in the transformation. Calling hash rate “the proof” is like pointing to smoke and claiming you understand combustion. It is the entropy-information bridge or the block itself that is the measurement. That is why PoW is not just an accounting trick or a security budget. It is literally the process by which energy becomes information, and information becomes time. Bitcoin is the first system in history to make that transformation measurable. Hash rate is the shadow. The block is the physics. So again, are we going to look at the physics or keep pointing at the hashrate saying “backed by energy”? Bitcoin provides Proof of Measurable Work, that’s the whole point.

Would read the book this is destined to become.

🫡

We’ll probably just keep pointing at the hashrate and saying backed by energy. Everything beyond that is interesting, but not needed to use the network. Yet we’re all glad there are people like you who explore the technicalities at an engineering level😁

Agreed, you don’t need to know the physics to use Bitcoin. Just like you don’t need to understand Maxwell’s equations to flip on a light switch. But if you’re trying to understand what Bitcoin actually is, how it integrates with power grids, miners , or how to engineer around it, etc., then the physics isn’t optional, it’s mandatory. The moment Bitcoin interacts with energy markets, infrastructure, or thermodynamic constraints, the people who understand those principles will outcompete everyone else. The same goes for monetary philosophy. It’s easy to say “Bitcoin is backed by energy” and stop there. But that leaves the comparison to fiat incomplete and backwards looking. If Bitcoin is to replace the existing system, we need proof (not vibes) of how value is measured. We need to look forward to joules, not dollars. It also points that the idea that value is subjective becomes provably false once you can express satoshis in joules. This is why the deeper physics matters. - Without understanding the thermodynamic transformation beneath Bitcoin, we have no principled way to reason about protocol upgrades or understand the changes at the physical level. - Without understanding the energy–information equivalence, we can’t articulate why Bitcoin must remain fixed and incorruptible. - Without understanding the joule-denominated foundations of time, value, and conservation, we leave the door open to subjective narratives and fiat logic returning We never resolve paradox in physics. Surface-level explanations are fine for users. If we want to build with Bitcoin or defend it, the physics isn’t optional. It’s the foundation of everything.

I've read this about four times throughout the day. Shared it as a Nostr link to my "interested... But cRypTo and price action" and "sort of sees it" friends who don't really see any of this shit yet 🫡

Not many people are ready for the physics side of Bitcoin, but it’s coming whether anyone is ready or not. Some days I feel like I’m shouting into the void, trying to point at something hiding in plain sight: there is far more happening beneath Bitcoin’s surface than the last sixteen years of discourse has even begun to touch. For the first time in history, we have a system that empirically demonstrates the conservation of energy and information, openly, continuously, and without interpretation. Proof-of-work doesn’t just “consume energy”; it measures it, transforms it, and records it. Every valid block is the physical crystallization of a thermodynamic process. Bitcoin is the only system to compute the isomorphism between Boltzmann entropy (heat, Kelvin, dissipated energy) and Shannon entropy (information, satoshis, conserved structure) into a discrete and verifiable unit of time. A block is that measurement, the equivalence point between two orientations of the same conserved quantity of energy. This has never existed before, and its implications for physics are enormous. Whether the community realizes it or not, Bitcoin is going to do to physics what it already did to finance and economics: it will reveal where the old models were relying on assumptions instead of observable reality. Right now, almost everyone in physics is still operating inside a “fractional-reserve” model of reality. Time is treated as continuous without ever being measured by the Plank Unit, “states” are treated as simultaneously real without defining what existence means and “existing” in numerous states simultaneously until a mysterious measurement occurs, and information is treated as something that can appear or disappear without accounting. Bitcoin openly contradicts all of it with verifiable proof. The chain is an irreversible record of conserved transformations, no double spending, no double states, no infinite denominators. We, as a community, need to do better at understanding this. You cannot fully understand Bitcoin without physics. And you cannot fully understand physics anymore without Bitcoin. Open-source money is open-source physics. The double-spend problem was never just monetary, it was ontological about the conservation of existence and information. Bitcoin solved both at once and turned the solution into an object we can observe (verify) every ten minutes. Bitcoin is measurable reality waiting for us to finally look.

I listended to Preston Pysh's podcast about the threat of quantum computing and I'm wondering why more people aren't talking about it?

Talking about what? The projected narrative of the threat? or the fact that Bitcoin disproves their models? The threat is convincing your Bitcoin and cryptography is broken without proof beyond a falsifiable theory.

I tend to concur. I watched the podcast and, no shade to @preston, of course, but it bummed me out. This is a particularly nasty FUD that's really hard to grok and defend against. Most people talking about it are sincere. Who dares to question the high priests of theoretical physics? The fiat hype machine invested in it has a ton of firepower. Companies spend massively on building quantum resistance, which is mostly theater: "it's ready to turn on." They get moat and privileged market access. Meanwhile, if it's all smoke--and it defies first principles reasoning, as you say--then precious cryptography and engineering resources are being burnt on an altar fraud. And Bitcoin gets FUDed and potentially distracted and deformed in the process. We have to find the right balance of messaging and pragmatic readiness to navigate this somehow, without wasting too much time or damaging the network OR getting gated out.

#btcfail