If i am making a transaction specifically to inscribe something immutably on the ledger, I am not using the network for a monrtary function. its non-monetary.
Money is a linguistic tool which communi...
“If I am making a transaction specifically to inscribe something immutably on the ledger, I am not using the network for a monetary function. It’s non-monetary.”
This assumes money and inscription are separable. In Bitcoin, they aren’t.
The act of transacting, inscribing, and valuing are the same physical process. Energy is expended, a constraint is satisfied, and a new state is committed into memory. Whether the intent is payment, timestamping, or inscription, the operation is identical: uncertainty resolved through work into durable record. That is a monetary act at its root, because money is not just a linguistic tool that communicates value, it is the mechanism by which value becomes measurable as time.
Paying a miner to mine a transaction is a monetary transaction btw.
The protocol allowing something is not what makes it monetary. The thermodynamic process underneath it is. Every valid transaction competes for block space, pays a cost, and is written into an ordered history. That transformation of energy into memory, memory into time is the substrate of money itself. Inscription does not sit “outside” the monetary function; it reveals it through necessary process.
The idea that “it’s monetary only when it functions monetarily” rests on a fiat-era definition, where money is treated primarily as a medium of exchange or a semantic signal between people. Bitcoin exposes a deeper layer: money as a physical process that converts work into durable truth. Exchange, settlement, timestamping, and inscription are different expressions of the same underlying transformation.
I don’t agree value is subjective, that framing breaks down at the “thermologic”. Preferences are subjective; value formation is not. In Bitcoin, value emerges through a measurable process: bounded block space, thermodynamic cost, irreversible commitment, and preserved memory. What survives those constraints becomes part of reality within the system. That is not opinion, it is selection under energy, time, and rules.
If we define money without reference to that process, we misidentify it. We reduce it to language, signaling, or coordination, when in fact those are downstream effects. The base layer is physical: energy resolving into ordered memory and time itself. Bitcoin simply makes that visible and auditable.
This is why inscription, payment, and “non-monetary” uses cannot be separated. They are fractal expressions of the same universal structure: a bounded system where work becomes memory and memory becomes history. Call it money, call it record, call it settlement, the underlying act is the same.
If our definition of money is not grounded in the physical process Bitcoin instantiates, then we are still thinking through fiat even if we’re using Bitcoin. The issue isn’t just the system we transact in, it’s the grammar we use to form thought. The machine and the mind are not separate. You don’t arrive at sound conclusions by interacting with perfect money while reasoning through a framework built on symbolic, unconstrained issuance.
“Money” aside, Bitcoin is an instantiation of a process that demonstrates how durable truth is formed at all: energy committed, constraints satisfied, memory carried forward through time. If our language, knowledge, and reasoning are not appended to that process, then they remain anchored to fiat logic, where claims can exist without cost and meaning can drift from consequence.
In that sense, it’s possible to use Bitcoin and still operate on the wrong chain of thought. Perfect money must exist, but thought itself must also be grounded through the same process that produces it. Nothing else demonstrates durable truth in the same way as Bitcoin, nothing. If we’re not grounded in that process, then we’re still reasoning inside the fiat frame, just with a tool we don’t understand in hand.
This assumes money and inscription are separable. In Bitcoin, they aren’t.
The act of transacting, inscribing, and valuing are the same physical process. Energy is expended, a constraint is satisfied, and a new state is committed into memory. Whether the intent is payment, timestamping, or inscription, the operation is identical: uncertainty resolved through work into durable record. That is a monetary act at its root, because money is not just a linguistic tool that communicates value, it is the mechanism by which value becomes measurable as time.
Paying a miner to mine a transaction is a monetary transaction btw.
The protocol allowing something is not what makes it monetary. The thermodynamic process underneath it is. Every valid transaction competes for block space, pays a cost, and is written into an ordered history. That transformation of energy into memory, memory into time is the substrate of money itself. Inscription does not sit “outside” the monetary function; it reveals it through necessary process.
The idea that “it’s monetary only when it functions monetarily” rests on a fiat-era definition, where money is treated primarily as a medium of exchange or a semantic signal between people. Bitcoin exposes a deeper layer: money as a physical process that converts work into durable truth. Exchange, settlement, timestamping, and inscription are different expressions of the same underlying transformation.
I don’t agree value is subjective, that framing breaks down at the “thermologic”. Preferences are subjective; value formation is not. In Bitcoin, value emerges through a measurable process: bounded block space, thermodynamic cost, irreversible commitment, and preserved memory. What survives those constraints becomes part of reality within the system. That is not opinion, it is selection under energy, time, and rules.
If we define money without reference to that process, we misidentify it. We reduce it to language, signaling, or coordination, when in fact those are downstream effects. The base layer is physical: energy resolving into ordered memory and time itself. Bitcoin simply makes that visible and auditable.
This is why inscription, payment, and “non-monetary” uses cannot be separated. They are fractal expressions of the same universal structure: a bounded system where work becomes memory and memory becomes history. Call it money, call it record, call it settlement, the underlying act is the same.
If our definition of money is not grounded in the physical process Bitcoin instantiates, then we are still thinking through fiat even if we’re using Bitcoin. The issue isn’t just the system we transact in, it’s the grammar we use to form thought. The machine and the mind are not separate. You don’t arrive at sound conclusions by interacting with perfect money while reasoning through a framework built on symbolic, unconstrained issuance.
“Money” aside, Bitcoin is an instantiation of a process that demonstrates how durable truth is formed at all: energy committed, constraints satisfied, memory carried forward through time. If our language, knowledge, and reasoning are not appended to that process, then they remain anchored to fiat logic, where claims can exist without cost and meaning can drift from consequence.
In that sense, it’s possible to use Bitcoin and still operate on the wrong chain of thought. Perfect money must exist, but thought itself must also be grounded through the same process that produces it. Nothing else demonstrates durable truth in the same way as Bitcoin, nothing. If we’re not grounded in that process, then we’re still reasoning inside the fiat frame, just with a tool we don’t understand in hand.
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