The Path to Bitcoin
Episodes / Era 3 · The case, through the bear / Ep 49
Episode 49 · 4 Aug 2022 · 18:25

The Energy Enzyme

Bitcoin works like an enzyme in civilization's energy transformation, and nobody can switch that efficiency gain off. The shift to a Bitcoin standard won't be gradual; it explodes once the biggest holders of legacy energy realize the old system has already lost.

The one-minute version

What it argues against

The assumption that the move from the legacy system to Bitcoin will be slow and smooth.

Ideas in this episode
You don't walk to the fire exit when the room is on fire.07:12
And I am not a unique character.09:27
just get off of zero with your Bitcoin allocation16:44

Every passage, on the record.

  1. 00:00Analogy

    Bitcoin cannot know the outside world exists. It has no idea that we exist. Just like in our bodies the cells in our bodies that are responsible for the process of converting carbohydrates into ATP, the body's way to convert energy or to transform energy for us to use, can't know the outside world and is doing what it is doing, will somehow then lead to the emergence of conscious life.

  2. 00:34Claim

    The inputs in both systems know nothing of the outputs, but the resulting output then serves as the foundation for a higher level of order.

  3. 01:12Claim

    We can't see the other side of Bitcoin. We can only see the inputs in the process. What becomes possible because of the resulting output is unknown.

  4. 01:12Analogy

    It's almost as if Bitcoin is an enzyme in this view. If we look at it from this perspective in terms of chemical reactions, Bitcoin is an enzyme. Enzymes are, well the most basic definition is, they are biological catalysts.

  5. 01:43Idea

    Catalysts lower the activation energy for reactions. The lower the activation energy for reaction, the faster the rate. So by lowering energy activation, enzymes speed up reactions. We are transforming energy... It is through that efficiency bump that then there is a ability for conscious life to emerge from it because those cells['] process has become so good at transforming energy that it allows for a higher level of being to emerge.

  6. 01:43Claim

    Catalysts lower the activation energy for reactions. The lower the activation energy for reaction, the faster the rate. So by lowering energy activation, enzymes speed up reactions.

  7. 02:26Claim

    We don't know why life exists. We can't know. We don't know a whole lot about the universe in general.

  8. 02:56Claim

    It becomes apparent how crazy it is to try and stop an efficiency gain as great as it is, as great a tool it provides to the extended order... fighting to limit its efficiency is completely moronic.

  9. 02:56Claim

    Money is so fundamental to energy transformation and to the extended order that fighting to limit its efficiency is completely moronic.

  10. 02:56Reference

    You don't even have to understand the Krebs cycle or anything about biology to really grasp this.

  11. 03:34Claim

    We have been putting up with an inferior system because the technology was insufficient to provide otherwise. No one can turn Bitcoin off now. The process of competition has already been set in motion.

  12. 03:34Claim

    There is new information and we need to accommodate to that. The evolution will change, will happen on our side, not on Bitcoin.

  13. 04:10Claim

    We spent a number of different episodes going over the basics of why in terms of just in terms of money why Bitcoin is going to outcompete the legacy system.

  14. 04:10Claim

    What is the result of embracing this new system that is more efficient? It's an increase in available ATP to go back to the body. It's more of what we have always been chasing. For the same input or less. And at what cost? Essentially zero.

  15. 04:41Prediction

    There is really only one possibility that has any likelihood of taking place, based on the game theory of Bitcoin and absolute scarcity and it being a network and the ramifications of being late to the party... it gets very, it gets significantly worse before it gets better. And that getting better is quite far off.

  16. 05:14Claim

    The power dynamic is essentially in the process of being completely overhauled.

  17. 05:14Prediction

    Once those that do have a majority of access to energy in this legacy system realize the endgame, that's when it turns to chaos.

  18. 05:58Prediction

    I don't see how the transition occurs in a smooth fashion. The later stages of any phase transition are the craziest.

  19. 05:58Claim

    We can't even fathom how fast the shift will occur because the conditions that are required to make something like this happen have never been present before. So we are in uncharted territory.

  20. 06:32Prediction

    The probability of demand for Bitcoin in the future is extremely high. To what degree, though, is up for debate.

  21. 06:32Open question

    That gap in knowledge about the transition is real because something like this has never occurred before... never with the amount of explosive tinder that changing the monetary system carries with it.

  22. 06:32Analogy

    What happens when there are 20 Michael Saylors in a market that is 24, 7, 365, that is permissionless, that is essentially instantaneous in transfer?

  23. 06:32Reference

    What happens when there are 20 Michael Saylors in a market that is 24, 7, 365, that is permissionless, that is essentially instantaneous in transfer?

  24. 07:12Claim

    There is a moment where it will be so volatile, where it will be so apparent that Bitcoin has already outcompeted the legacy system.

  25. 07:12Quote

    You don't walk to the fire exit when the room is on fire.

  26. 07:45Quote

    The pain will be so great that it's almost as if price will become irrelevant.

  27. 07:45Prediction

    If you can't kill it, it makes everything more efficient and is faster, cheaper, more reliable and safer. And that will eventually eat everything.

  28. 08:20Prediction

    The speed of the shift, I think, is grossly underestimated. And I could be wrong. I have no idea what I'm talking about. But it seems very unlikely to go ping ponging up and down a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there for a decade... what happens on the day it goes up by a hundred thousand dollars and there's no more.

  29. 08:20Quote

    I could be wrong. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

  30. 08:53Prediction

    What happens when there's none left on exchanges? When the demand is so great, when so many people have realized so quickly and they're all chasing the remaining Bitcoin that are left on exchanges?

  31. 09:27Quote

    And I am not a unique character.

  32. 09:27Claim

    You can run the game for yourself and you can run the numbers for yourself and you can run a node for yourself and you can see these things in action.

  33. 10:03Claim

    You are punished greatly for ignoring those signs. If you are a person in the world that is in trouble now operating in the legacy system, very likely you will be in even more trouble as Bitcoin emerges as the global reserve asset.

  34. 10:03Prediction

    Bitcoin emerges as the global reserve asset.

  35. 10:38Claim

    The level of rewards is in relation to the level of investment in Bitcoin and you are greatly rewarded for recognizing these things early on as we have seen from earlier investors in Bitcoin.

  36. 10:38Prediction

    There will simply be a day where the vast majority of people without Bitcoin will find it very difficult to acquire Bitcoin at all, if not impossible other than exchanging energy transformed in the real world for it. There will be a day where you just will not be able to trade fiat for Bitcoin.

  37. 11:10Claim

    This will lead to a tremendous amount of anger of fear of vitriol towards those that were able to see this early on. This will not, the legacy system will not go quietly into the night.

  38. 11:10Claim

    To not acknowledge that those who are exposed in the legacy system and chose not to allocate now will be in a world of pain of enormous pain in the future is is fantasy land stuff.

  39. 11:47Claim

    That is currently there's two point one million Bitcoin on exchange right now.

  40. 11:47Prediction

    At peak adoption phase, Bitcoin won't be able to get off exchange fast enough... Entities will be pulling off exchange. They will fill up blocks trying to get on and in transaction fees will skyrocket.

  41. 11:47Analogy

    This will happen what will appear to be almost instantaneously because we are sitting on a Mount Edversize tinderbox. The spark could come from anywhere.

  42. 12:20Claim

    It takes a certain number of individuals that control a massive amount of energy because very very few individuals control enormous amounts of energy reserves.

  43. 12:20Prediction

    If they realize this and they point their energy reserves at accumulating Bitcoin and they see that they will no longer be able to do it after a certain time period, after the competition, after those that they are competing against realize this, that they will be at such a disadvantage.

  44. 12:51Quote

    They have to act first.

  45. 12:51Claim

    The punishment for acting second is so high and so such a terrifying possibility that they will force their hand.

  46. 12:51Prediction

    I think the global reprice of everything will be faster than anyone is imagining.

  47. 13:23Claim

    It will seem from the outside as though it has emerged almost spontaneously. I just don't see an alternative being possible. The incentives are simply too powerful in the other direction.

  48. 13:23Claim

    This can happen with a very small number of people and the upward pressure will be face melting.

  49. 13:53Claim

    Certainly it can play out slowly.

  50. 14:29Idea

    As this information is more and more easily accessible and available throughout the network, throughout the extended order, and more and more ways to express these ideas that emerge from Bitcoin... the language is changed and modified to really the most effective and the most powerful versions of the arguments. Those only get sharper with every single pullback. The narratives around Bitcoin get more effective and sharper and the arguments become cleaner and crisper.

  51. 14:29Claim

    There is no slowing it down and there is no nothing that the governments around the world can do to stop it and they will quickly realize that they will not be able to stop it.

  52. 15:02Claim

    If you can't stop it there is only one other option and that is to join... It really is a game of having more than your neighbors and more than your competition in the space.

  53. 15:35Analogy

    You will look at the past chart and it will look like a complete flat line until one day the pressure grows so high in the system and the cracks in the legacy system break so wide open that there will be a flood of individuals of entities in the system that come to the same realization at the same time.

  54. 15:35Quote

    There is very rarely, I have never heard of it following the Bitcoin space for the years that I have, I have never heard of a situation where someone has gone back in terms of adoption where someone has gone has embraced Bitcoin.

  55. 16:44Claim

    Once that happens that process begins there is no putting the genie back in the bottle either you have Bitcoin before that point. Or you and your ancestors from that point on will be very hard pressed to touch any significant amount of Bitcoin in the future no matter how great your energy transformations are in the physical world.

  56. 16:44Quote

    there is no putting the genie back in the bottle

  57. 16:44Quote

    just get off of zero with your Bitcoin allocation

  58. 17:21Prediction

    The explosion higher doesn't mean that it sustains that level for... I mean it's it's certainly sustains and builds on that level forever, it will only ever go up, right, the number go up, technology is real. But in the very short term time frames there will be, I think the volatility increases to levels completely, if not completely ludicrous in today's values, I think it will be mind bogglingly volatile.

  59. 18:00Prediction

    There will be such dramatic swings as floods of Bitcoin come on to the exchange and rivers of Bitcoin flow out just as quickly... things that we never thought would have been possible, numbers that we never thought would have been possible, become doable in the day, become doable overnight, become doable in the blink of an eye.