The Energy Wall

Every passage, on the record.

1. 00:00Claim

   Reality is simply a set of constants. From our perspective, if reality would be seen to alter, if what seemed to be a constant shifted. And in that sense, we can say that Bitcoin created a new reality or a separate reality. It introduced a new immovable constraint on a system that then altered reality.

2. 00:35Claim

   And as I've said before on the podcast, take anything that interests or excites you in the legacy world and add Bitcoin, and chances are no one else has thought to do that yet. That is how early we are in the process right now.

3. 01:07Claim

   And it's as easy as saying just add Bitcoin, and whatever you're adding Bitcoin to becomes instantly more efficient. And where there are efficiency gains to be had, there is energy to be had.

4. 01:40Quote

   The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste.

5. 01:40Reference

   And this idea was first addressed by Satoshi himself when he laid out the arguments that not having Bitcoin is actually a net negative on energy.

6. 01:40Claim

   And if you are pro-life, and not in the human sense, but in the organizer of matter sense, it is a gross disservice to that movement by not doing everything you can to promote the flourishing of the Bitcoin system.

7. 02:13Claim

   the amount of energy that can be freed from its currently locked position, and it's currently locked up due to friction and exchange both in time and in physical space, is limiting our ability to harness that energy and create more and more denser and denser energy reserves.

8. 02:13Reference

   And few people have made that argument better than Michael Saylor and people like Jason Lowery.

9. 02:13Reference

   And few people have made that argument better than Michael Saylor and people like Jason Lowery.

10. 02:13Claim

    The more hash that comes online, the better. The more energy it takes to overthrow the system, the more we, the extended order, can leverage Bitcoin's true power.

11. 02:13Idea

    The more hash that comes online, the better. The more energy it takes to overthrow the system, the more we, the extended order, can leverage Bitcoin's true power.

12. 02:45Analogy

    What makes it challenging for people to fully grasp that this energy spend on defense is happening is because it's happening in a world that can't be seen. And it's like dark matter. We can't see it, but we know it must be there because we can see and measure the effects.

13. 02:45Analogy

    Now, imagine Bitcoin as a new square on the periodic table of elements. The elements on the table are difficult to physically witness at their base level without the aid of technology. We can know that they are there before we can see them because we've developed a certain process that can identify their signature. But like many of the other elements, we couldn't have known that to be the case until we had sufficient energy reserves at our disposal to be able to develop the technology necessary to recognize it.

14. 03:57Claim

    the abstraction of the physical world when it comes to the power projection game means the energy usage of Bitcoin is that much more difficult to wrap your mind around.

15. 03:57Idea

    There is a wall that surrounds Bitcoin. There is this defensive wall that is put up. And this wall is there as a line of defense against actors who would like to do harm to the system or create chaos inside of it.

16. 04:30Claim

    in order to breach that wall, much like in the physical world, an attacker is going to have to channel the energy necessary to overcome it. And if it cannot overcome the wall, it cannot change Bitcoin. It cannot alter reality. And this is good. We don't want entities to have the ability to change Bitcoin without consent. The bigger the wall, the more energy in the wall, the better.

17. 04:30Analogy

    How much energy would a raiding army need to have in reserve if it came across a knee-high brick wall? Well, not much. Infantry could just step over it. Vehicles could simply drive through it. Very little energy is necessary to overcome a constraint that isn't well energized. Now, imagine a steel structure a mile high and a mile thick. It would take a tremendous amount of energy to build such a structure, which means it would take a tremendous amount of energy to breach that wall.

18. 05:02Claim

    If you have the energy protection around you, then you can begin to plan for the future. If you are planning for the future, you can leverage specialization and exchange with those around you. You can begin to build something worthy of that level of protection. And that energy investment makes sense because you can be assured that the wall protecting your reserves won't be breached. If there was a threat, it wouldn't be in your best interest not to consume every bit of energy you transform immediately. And it would make sense because you don't have the assurance that that energy will be there in the future because you cannot protect it. And that would those incentives would lead to a certain pattern of behavior, a pattern of behavior that we're witnessing now in the legacy world.

19. 06:08Claim

    the energy surrounding Bitcoin now is impenetrable from an energy standpoint, right? It has reached escape velocity. Nothing can catch it now. That means no actor, a group of actors can summon the necessary energy to climb the wall. That's how tall it has become. That's how thick it has built up.

20. 06:08Quote

    It has reached escape velocity. Nothing can catch it now.

21. 06:08Quote

    Any attempt is a waste of energy. Any attempt to breach the wall is a waste of energy.

22. 07:12Claim

    It's not only a waste of energy to try and breach the wall, but it's more insulting. It gets worse when you realize that you could have simply extended the strength of the wall and benefited from the wall had you just opted to plug your energy into the system itself. There was nothing stopping you from that because anyone can help strengthen the wall and be rewarded for it, no matter who you are or where you get the energy from. And so it's in the best interest of the enemies of Bitcoin to help Bitcoin.

23. 07:12Quote

    Why waste energy trying to breach the impenetrable wall when you can join it and be rewarded for it?

24. 07:45Claim

    we can think of the wall as separating the new world from the old world. In the old world, you had to use logic to constrain computers, to constrain the informational realm. In the new world, you can physically constrain information. The bridge connecting the informational realm with the physical realm has been erected with Bitcoin. That's made possible with Bitcoin. Anyone can enter the gates if they agree to the rules. Anyone can breach the walls if they agree to the rules. And the beauty of the system is that if they break the rules once inside, they are out, not enforced by an external element, but rather the logic of the code itself, the game itself.

25. 07:45Quote

    In the old world, you had to use logic to constrain computers, to constrain the informational realm. In the new world, you can physically constrain information.

26. 08:22Claim

    You can't cheat and be using Bitcoin. You can only use Bitcoin or not. If you are using it, you cannot be cheating.

27. 08:22Quote

    You can't cheat and be using Bitcoin. You can only use Bitcoin or not. If you are using it, you cannot be cheating.

28. 08:22Idea

    And the environment this creates leads to a number of different interesting outcomes, one of which is the myth of disappearing hash power. That does not exist.

29. 08:56Claim

    Nothing the government has done has limited the operation of the Bitcoin network in any way. You haven't limited personal interaction with the network at all. All you've done is take hash offline. Again, a huge amount of energy transformed in this process. Even the ASICs that are confiscated aren't destroyed when this happens. Why? Because that is a huge, obvious waste of energy, even to the central planners. The government realizes this and they decide that they are just going to sell the ASICs. They want energy in return.

30. 09:27Event

    We saw this exact thing with the Chinese mining ban in 2021. The game theory became a reality.

31. 09:59Claim

    Even if upper levels of government are ignorant of the facts of this, the game theory says that they are powerless to control a decentralized system. Low level government officials are enticed at every step along the way to defy orders.

32. 11:04Claim

    The net waste of destroying a miner is so great that it morphs the incentive model of mindlessly following directives from abstract power structures. You're just not going to do it. In every scenario, the ultimate outcome is the energy wall that surrounds the property rights of the Bitcoin network grows in strength. If you can't beat them, join them.

33. 11:04Quote

    If you can't beat them, join them.

34. 12:44Claim

    We are constrained by that wall. When in fact it's the opposite, it makes us more free. It makes us more available to set goals in the future to be sure that the work that we do today, the energy that we transform today will be there tomorrow because no one can confiscate it without our consent, without the users inside of the system, without you individually giving up access to that energy.

35. 12:44Quote

    We are constrained by that wall. When in fact it's the opposite, it makes us more free.

36. 13:22Claim

    this is at the nascent stage of Bitcoin, right? This is Bitcoin below a million blocks. The first million blocks haven't been produced. And we've already reached escape velocity. We've already made it impossible.

37. 13:22Prediction

    And again, the real gains will come once the attacks begin to mount and the attacks will begin to mount, right? They have to. No one is going to give up power in the fiat legacy system without a fight. They're going to do everything that they can.

38. 14:02Claim

    this wall is so impenetrable that only a few misguided central authorities are going to make the effort because the others won't be allowed to. It will become that obvious that they cannot breach the wall, that they will realize that is just a net negative on the country, on the inhabitants, on the citizens, on the government themselves, on those entities.

39. 14:36Claim

    This is why when you decide to plug your energy into Bitcoin, you are you are able to gain future energy reserves based on the work of others. Anyone that is contributing positively, that is making the system more efficient in any way benefits you because you are an owner of a portion of the total accessible supply of energy inside of the system.

40. 14:36Idea

    Anyone that is contributing positively, that is making the system more efficient in any way benefits you because you are an owner of a portion of the total accessible supply of energy inside of the system. Right? That TASOE idea that we've talked about so much.

41. 15:09Claim

    once the cat is out of the bag, it's impossible to put it back in. It's gone. The toothpaste has been squeezed from the tube. There is no getting it back inside. There is only those who are aware of this new reality and those who have not yet seen it. And that gives a massive advantage to those who are aware of it, especially in a world that is built on absolute scarcity.

42. 15:09Analogy

    once the cat is out of the bag, it's impossible to put it back in. It's gone. The toothpaste has been squeezed from the tube. There is no getting it back inside.

43. 15:09Quote

    The toothpaste has been squeezed from the tube. There is no getting it back inside.

44. 15:40Prediction

    This is it's going to be violent, not in the physical violent sense, but just in how quickly things are going to escalate. And that speed and quickness will happen because there is no escape. There is nowhere to hide. There is nowhere to run when a more efficient system comes online.

45. 15:40Quote

    There is nowhere to hide. There is nowhere to run when a more efficient system comes online.