What happens when you study bitcoin through the lens of physics?
We Are Satoshi episode 67 with BitcoinLens.net authors Jack and Nick explores the idea that Bitcoin is more than a monetary network—it is a physical and informational system worth studying through the lens of fundamental physics. The conversation starts with proof of work and the often-repeated claim that Bitcoin is “backed by energy.” But what does that actually mean physically?
Jack and Nick argue that Bitcoin creates a relationship between energy, computation, information, memory, and time that may give us a new way to think about concepts usually kept in separate academic disciplines.
Bitcoin works because it solves the double-spend problem. Quantum computers don’t work because physics does not have an answer to the measurement problem. Is it possible that our understanding of physics could evolve through observing and studying bitcoin?
To me, exploring Bitcoin from outside the usual economics and finance lens yields new perspectives that can be applied to current debates around bitcoin development, building businesses on bitcoin and even personal life decisions.
These are ambitious and speculative ideas—but that is exactly the point of the conversation: to examine Bitcoin as an open experiment rather than assume we already understand what it is.
Bitcoin Is More Than Money. It Might Be a Physics Breakthrough.
