People who have spent enormous amounts of money and electricity to obtain records on the Bitcoin blockchain often deflect criticism by appealing to fiat money. They say things like: "Fiat is just a record on paper or in a bank’s database, yet people trade vast amounts of real goods and services for it every day."
What they conveniently omit is that records are everywhere. Scientific data, sports results, meteorological measurements, and stock ownership are all records stored somewhere. The mere fact that something is a record is irrelevant. What matters is what that record represents and why anyone would even pay for it.
Take, for example, a record of wind speed. It can provide crucial information, especially in aviation. That is why it makes sense to pay for it. A record of stock ownership represents a right to future cash flows, which also makes it worth paying for. The same applies to fiat money, which represents a debt within the banking system that must be repaid under the threat of losing a house, a business, or, in the case of a state, facing sovereign default.
In short, we pay for records that create concrete future benefits. The greater the expected benefit, the higher the price of the record.
However, when we examine Bitcoin, its record represents nothing more than the fact that computers made random guesses until they solved a cryptographic puzzle. It is a record of past activity, not one that creates any concrete future benefits. It is like doing 10 push-ups and recording "10", or driving 250 kilometers and recording "250". Why would anyone pay even a dime for that? It makes no sense.
Imagine three people: one holding stocks, one holding fiat money, and one holding Bitcoin. Ask each the same question: "Why should I give you something valuable in exchange for that record? How does it benefit me?"
The stockholder answers: "Because this record gives you rights to future cash flows."
The holder of fiat money answers: "Because this record gives you leverage over debtors who must work for you or give you assets to settle their obligations toward banks."
The Bitcoin holder’s response is completely different: "Because it is the future of finance, a monetary revolution, decentralized, supply-capped, secure, and because my neighbor got rich from it."
The Bitcoin holder is forced to rely on impressive-sounding phrases, technical specifications, and stories about other people’s profits. They cannot state the plain truth: "Pay me tens of thousands of dollars for a record proving that computers in the past expended electricity solving puzzles." It is like asking for a car in exchange for a record of doing a push-up.
No rational person would accept that deal. That is precisely why the Bitcoin community constructs elaborate narratives and uses lofty language. All of it serves to mask the fundamental absurdity: people are giving up records that deliver future benefits in exchange for records of computer work, mere digital phantoms of an energy-intensive past.
