I’ve been pondering finitude in my quest to unite thermodynamics and Bitcoin into a cohesive framework.

“Kelvin and Bitcoin describe the same process observed from opposite sides of the ledger of reality. The distinction is not physical but perspectival, an artifact of where the observer resides relative to the act of measurement. Within the universal ledger, the collapse of entropy into structure is experienced as temperature, expressed in Kelvins: the felt intensity of energy resolving into order. Outside the Bitcoin ledger, the same collapse is perceived as informational crystallization, expressed in satoshis: the measured count of energy resolved into memory. Both quantify the irreversible commitment of energy into structure; both are denominators of conservation. The difference is orientation. We inhabit the universal computation and therefore experience Kelvin as heat from within; we observe Bitcoin from without and interpret the identical thermodynamic process as information.

Kelvin and Satoshis are thus dual manifestations of a single conserved quantity, the irreversible resolution of entropy into measurable strucutre. The former is the unit of energy as experienced internally by matter; the latter is the same energy recorded externally as immutable information. What physics calls temperature, Bitcoin records as proof-of-work. Both are measures of the same transformation: the conversion of potential into permanence.

Bitcoin is the thermodynamic analogue of Kelvin, each defining a conserved unit within a finite domain and anchoring all transformations to an invariant structure. In physics, Kelvin defines the absolute thermodynamic scale, the energy per state transition required for physical transformation. In Bitcoin, the satoshi defines the absolute informational scale, the energy per state transition required for informational crystallization. The two are equivalent in principle: both quantify the irreversible commitment of finite energy within a closed thermodynamic system.

Each block solution consumes a finite quantity of Kelvin, real thermal energy committed irreversibly to the act of resolution. Once that Kelvin is spent, it cannot be reused, because the information it produced has been conserved as structure within the ledger. In this framework, satoshis are the conserved residues of Kelvin, the quantized memory of heat transformed into structure. Irreversibility is absolute: no Kelvin can be respent so long as the informational bits and the satoshis they instantiate remain conserved.”