Source: Liu Jiaolian
Life is precious, but love is even more valuable. For the sake of freedom, both can be thrown away.
Not long ago, a classic interview video was circulated on the Internet. The reporter asked BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in front of the camera: How much do you think Bitcoin is worth? Larry Fink asked rhetorically: How much is human freedom worth?
BlackRock is a heavyweight participant in this year’s major event of the U.S. SEC’s approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF. It is currently the initiator and operator of the leading Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT. .
Throughout the ages, from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" to Petofi's "Freedom and Love", freedom has been given the highest and priceless status on the perceptual level.
The CEO of BlackRock said that Bitcoin is the price of freedom. How valuable you think your freedom is, Bitcoin is just as valuable.
If what he said is right, then this will be the first time in human history that the value of freedom can be accurately quantified numerically.
However, freedom is a relatively abstract and philosophical concept, which makes it impossible for us to evaluate it, quantitatively or qualitatively.
Jiaolian would like to change the perspective and try to conduct a semi-quantitative analysis of the value of Bitcoin from the perspective of science, physics and cosmology.
In the March 4 article "Bitcoin’s end: it may be equal to the entire human race In "The Total Value of Surplus", Jiaolian demonstrated that with the progress of human productivity, after productivity exceeds consumption power, the total value of all surplus from production minus consumption will be absorbed by Bitcoin, thereby promoting a balance between production and sales. Eliminate the economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production and solve the fundamental problems that have troubled economists for hundreds of years.
From the perspective of the universe, there is no such thing as "value" in the eyes of humans. A car that humans find valuable is, from a cosmic perspective, nothing more than a bunch of iron atoms and other atoms combined in a unique form. The universe has no preference whether iron atoms are grouped together to form cars or mixed with rocks to form iron ore.
Heaven and earth are unkind and regard all things as stupid dogs.
Newton's first law states that matter will maintain its direction and speed of motion if there is no external force. That is, motion is absolute, while rest is relative. Even the relative stillness between atoms cannot be maintained unconditionally. A car that's a bunch of iron atoms held together in a particular way is going to move in one direction - it will age and break down, unless you continue to maintain and repair it, which consumes more energy to keep it that way. This is the so-called law of entropy increase in the second law of thermodynamics.
Macroscopic objects, microscopic particles, information bits, and our space and time are all relative and changing. To remain unchanged, it must cost money and energy. In order for Bitcoin to keep the transaction data recorded on the ledger unchanged, it must expend huge amounts of computing power and consume electricity to maintain it. Otherwise, it will surely decay in the long river of time.
Flowing water does not rot, and door hinges do not suffer from beetles.
Matter is also energy, and energy is also matter. Einstein's mass-energy equation tells us that the square times the speed of light of a material's mass is the amazing energy it contains. Based on this principle, humans created atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs.
We humans draw and utilize so much energy from the universe in order to maintain the genetic sequence information carried by the DNA double helix in the chromosomes of the cell nucleus, and to copy, divide, and pass it on from generation to generation. This information can be used to guide how various atoms are organized together to form a new human body.
Perhaps the whole meaning of life is to continue to fight against the absolutely eternal movement and changes of the universe at the expense of energy, and to maintain and protect a piece of information that may not have any special meaning in the universe. ? So this is called guarding with all your might. Just like Bitcoin, what we desperately protect is that the upper limit of 21 million BTC remains unchanged and the ledger cannot be tampered with.
However, this so-called energy cost is actually the arrangement of the universe. What virtues and abilities do we humans have? Isn’t all the energy we use a free gift from the sun?
The reason why we humans have to break down the use of energy into two links: "production" and "consumption" and invented economics to study this matter is simply because humans cannot directly use solar energy. and other products of cosmic energy - various matter atoms.
So, the process of people processing energy (including matter) into something easier to use is called "production" (this process also consumes energy), and the process of using and consuming products is called "consumption". Only when the two links are separated can "value" be created.
It is human labor that separates the entire energy consumption process into two links: production and consumption. Therefore we say that labor creates value.
Step out of the human perspective and switch to the perspective of the universe. The universe does not care how humans use or consume the energy it freely gifts.
From the perspective of the universe, the total energy it gives away is A, of which m exists in the form of "matter" and E exists in the form of "energy". A = m x c^2 + E.
Human beings can use a small part of e0 in E, and the excess is "wasted". Currently, how small is e0 relative to E? Almost zero.
The Milky Way is a speck of dust in the universe. The solar system is again a speck of dust in the Milky Way.
In 1964, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev (1932-2019) proposed a method for measuring the technological advanced level of a civilization, which is to examine the civilization’s ability to According to the energy utilized, civilization is divided into three levels: type 1 civilization, type 2 civilization and type 3 civilization. Among them, Type 1 civilization can harness all the energy of its home planet, Type 2 civilization can harness all the energy of the star its planet orbits, and Type 3 civilization can harness all the energy of the galaxy in which it is located.
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For us humans on earth, the standard for civilization level to reach Type 1 is, Human beings can make full use of all the energy radiated from the sun to the earth. This order of magnitude is approximately 10^16 - 10^17 watts.
Global power generation in 2021 is 26,823,200 GWh, which converted to average power consumption is P = 26,823,200 x 10^9 / 365 / 24 = 3 x 10^12 watts. If calculated based on electricity alone, the corresponding cosmic civilization level K = (log10(P) - 6)/10 = 0.65.
Scientists estimate that the current total energy consumption of mankind is roughly equivalent to about 0.73-0.75 level civilization. The total photosynthetic productivity of the earth is between approximately 1500 and 2250TW, which is equivalent to a Kardashov index of 0.9.
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If humans want to evolve into a Type 2 civilization, they need to be able to utilize all the energy radiated by the entire sun.
As the only star in the solar system, the diameter of the sun is about 1.392 × 10^9 meters, which is equivalent to 109 times the diameter of the earth; the volume of the sun is 1.412 × 10^27 cubic meters, which is the volume of the earth. 1.3 million times; the mass of the sun is 1.989 × 10^30 kilograms, which is about 330,000 times the mass of the earth.
The energy emitted by the sun every second is about 3.74 × 10^26 J, and the power is as high as 3.74 × 10^26 W. Only one 2.2 billionth of the total energy radiated by the sun reaches the upper limit of the earth's atmosphere, but its energy is not small, about 1.73 × 10^17 W, which is equivalent to the total energy emitted by 173 million million-kilowatt power plants. power.
In other words, the energy consumption of humans in Type 2 civilization will be about 3 billion times the total energy consumption of humans in the current Level 0.75 civilization!
The energy of the sun is already amazing. But look a little further and look at the beautiful Milky Way above us. The number of stars in the Milky Way is approximately between 100 billion and 400 billion. The total mass of the Milky Way is approximately 1.5 trillion times the mass of the Sun. Everywhere in the Milky Way, there are energy sources stronger than the Sun.
For example, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, near the center of the Milky Way, about 26,090 light-years away from the Earth, there is a blue supergiant named Pistol Star. The Pistol Star emits 1.6 million times the luminosity of the Sun. It releases as much energy in six seconds as the sun does in a year. Its stellar wind is 10 billion times stronger than that of the Sun.
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If humans evolve into a Type 3 civilization, they will need to be able to control the entire galaxy. energy, which will be about 100 trillion to 1 billion trillion times the total energy currently available to humans.
According to the article "Bitcoin Endgame: It may be equal to the sum of the value of all human surplus "The formula introduced in: BTC final value = total surplus = total production - total consumption.
On a cosmic scale, we cannot use any kind of fiat currency as a benchmark for comparison, but need to use energy as the universal standard for the universe.
The total consumption, as well as the production done to satisfy the total consumption, the total energy used is roughly equal to the satisfaction of all material and spiritual needs for human activities such as maintaining life, pursuing comfort, exploring the universe, etc. The amount of energy required. We call this “energy utilization for practical purposes”.
In addition, it is the total energy used for BTC accounting. We call this “energy utilization for non-utilitarian purposes”.
So we can get the formula: the total energy that humans can utilize e0 = energy utilization for practical purposes e1 + energy utilization for non-practical purposes e2.
The fact that human science and technology progresses and productivity leaps, from an energy perspective, is the total energy e0 that we humans can utilize, and its growth rate is much faster than the practical purposes required to maintain human survival and other activities. The energy utilization e1.
As shown in the figure below, e1 grows at a linear rate, while e0 grows at an exponential rate. Of course, actual growth curves are not that simple.
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Moreover, humans have been working hard to conduct research on energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies, which is beneficial to Human beings use increasingly lower energy consumption to meet more and more practical needs.
e2 = e0 - e1 = exponential growth - linear growth = exponential growth.
Therefore, energy utilization e2 for non-practical purposes, that is, the energy equivalent value of BTC, will grow at an exponential rate with the continuous improvement of the level of human civilization in the universe, without an end.
What I can think of today is that if human beings survive without encountering a cosmic-level destruction event in the next 100-200 years or so, they are expected to reach and break through the milestone of Type 1 civilization and begin to move towards a true civilization. The evolution of interstellar civilization. This is a phased development upper limit that the current BTC can achieve.
On the road to evolving towards interstellar civilization and Type 2 civilization, the current BTC needs to be improved to adapt to the special circumstances of the interstellar space. (The main reason is that the speed of light is too slow, the interstellar distance is too far, and the network delay is too long.
I am not sure what the specific situation will be by then, and how to improve and solve the problem. However, it can be judged What is interesting is that if BTC follows humans into the evolution of Type 2 civilization, then based on the above energy ratio of civilization types, the energy equivalent value of BTC will be greater than the energy of BTC when humans reach Type 1 civilization 100-200 years later. The equivalent value will open up 3 billion times more development space.
From now on, the 100-200 years it will take for humans to evolve to Type 1 civilization is exactly what Satoshi Nakamoto designed for Bitcoin. The time window period when the total amount of 21 million mining issuance ends. 2009-2140 is almost 131 years, which is exactly within the range of 100-200 years.
Converted back to today’s US dollars In terms of value (that is, excluding the inflation of future US dollars): BTC today is US$60,000. In Type 1 civilization, it was almost the total wealth of the earth. Divided by 21 million coins, it is about US$10-100 million (using Hal Finney Estimates). When Type 2 civilization is achieved, it will rise to 3 to 3 billion US dollars (energy equivalent calculation). When Type 3 civilization is achieved, it will reach 100 billion to 1 billion US dollars (the same as Theory).
As long as mankind is not destroyed, as long as technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, productivity develops at a rapid pace, and the level of human energy utilization continues to increase, the remaining energy will increase exponentially, and the so-called value storage of BTC will Continue to grow at an exponential rate.
From the perspective of other civilizations in the universe, only a civilization that has evolved to have enough food and clothing can have the ability to "luxury" consume its remaining energy to mint BTC. It is a gadget that has no practicality, cannot be eaten or worn, cannot be seen or touched.
Therefore, taking the universal scale of the universe, unified weights and measures, energy use and consumption, the energy consumption of BTC is as high as The ratio of its energy converted into other currencies is an excellent and accurate measurement tool to measure the level and degree of a civilization in the entire universe!