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- If each Bitcoin block could be measured/“priced” in joules per satoshi, how would that change the way we interpret block time and value?

- What would it mean for every block to carry a distinct thermodynamic signature, an energy cost uniquely tied to its creation? What does it mean for time to be priced and measured in energy?

- How does Bitcoin pricing itself directly in joules, independent of any fiat reference, reframe its role as a monetary system?

- In what ways would such a metric reshape mining incentives and deepen our understanding of Bitcoin’s physical foundations?

- What if I told you it was possible to do this today?

- Are Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) limited to protocol changes, or is the most important improvement still a deeper understanding of the physical process Bitcoin already instantiates?

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Discussion

Tim Bouma 2w ago

Yep. I reduced it to that: satoshis/joule. The more human-meaningful metric is satoshis/banana (approx 100 calories).

Jack K 2w ago

Yeah, still thinking this thru the later part of the idea; but each block of time has a price (entropic cost in joules before measurement/mined) and a measurement (the single deterministic outcome). The energy required to produce an outcome, and the actual outcome is observable, and the supply of satoshis at each point in time is known.

That suggests it should be possible to calculate a moving average of the price of time in joules per satoshi (I haven’t check the data yet). While each block is a discrete event rather than a smooth continuum, the sequence of blocks still allows meaningful aggregation over time.

If that’s correct, then anything priced in bitcoin is also implicitly priced in joules, using a consistent physical metric rather than a fiat reference. This reframes bitcoin as a direct mapping between economic value and thermodynamic cost.