Money must be anchored to the physical world. That anchor is energy.
If a monetary unit can be created without cost, without energy expenditure, it has no physical basis. Even a perfectly cryptographic, trustless system that enforces scarcity without work would still be ungrounded. It would be a symbol without substrate.
What money represents is an exchangeable good that required effort to bring into usefulness. Effort implies time. Time implies energy. Value begins there.
Bitcoinβs proof-of-work is not incidental. It is the bridge between the abstract and the physical. Energy was expended. Humans chose to expend it. Will was embedded into existence. Like artisanry, that work is indelible.
Without the work, Bitcoin would lose its relation to the real world. With it, Bitcoin becomes an intangible good that can nonetheless carry real value. Existence of bitcoin testifies that someone sacrificed something irrecoverable: time, proven by energy burned.
Scarcity amplifies this. Cryptography preserves it. Ownership is not just possession of bits, but possession of the proof that work was done, will was exercised, and value was brought into being.
I have known that Venezuelan dictators have required overrides in election machines produced in the US for nearly 25 years. This at the insistence of "certain US three letter agencies" for color revolutions in South America.
What I did not know is Russia, China and Iran had influence over the Venezuela.
What I also did not know is Iran, Russia, UK, Frence, Canada, US, Australia and NZ all share intelligence and personnel and have since Gen. Marshall.
Its all a marionette show, people.
Look up Harrison Bergeron.
Lord she's restless,
Like cotton candy clouds that sail the day,
Slow and free.
And she possesses,
A mind that can't resolve itself to stay,
For long with me.
I thought I tried to keep her tied and satisfied
Until she really needs me,
(Yes I do.)
But when that certain look comes on her face,
I can't replace it, and she leaves me.
She's a butterfly in mid July
Who just can't wait to try her brand new wings
On brand new things.
And she needs no rhyme or reason when she goes.
Her mind is on what lies beyond that wall of blue horizon,
I suppose, and heaven knows,
She'll go sailin off on any old wind that blows.