A symbiotic relationship for the digital age

The following is a guest post from Shane Neagle, Editor In Chief from The Tokenist.

When the Federal Reserve tampered with the money supply in 2020, by giving it a ~40% boost, everyone has been paying the cost of that tampering via inflation. In turn, people’s life energy is siphoned away as their savings are eroded. When more money buys less, extra energy needs to be exerted to keep the same pace.

The solution to this problem is obvious. Make money tamper-proof through decentralization and fixed supply. Let no one lord over it. That is the initial drive behind Bitcoin, but one that needs a critical component to work – physical grounding.

If Bitcoin were just a digital asset, it would be easier to alter the network’s ledger, known as blockchain. The elegant remedy for this is proof-of-work mining, which acts as an energy barrier tying Bitcoin’s digital code to real-world resources. If a would-be attacker is set on altering the ledger’s record, they would require an exorbitant amount of energy harnessing computational power.

At 733.41 EH/s (hashrate), such an energy barrier is virtually impenetrable. But that means that Bitcoin’s energy need is the cost of having tamper-proof money. Likewise, energy is the cost of having data centers churn out text//images/videos/codes whenever people prompt AI agents.

In both cases, human productivity is augmented. But can their energy needs be optimized in a symbiotic manner?

The Energy Dynamics of Bitcoin Mining and AI

It is safe to say that being a developed nation is strongly correlated with a high energy usage. This is clearly visible if we chart per capita electricity generation in kilowatt-hours (kWh) against a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

In other words, access to energy excess is a requirement for civilizational advancement to manifest. After all, when multiple layers are added to the basic subsistence level such as agriculture, new layers in manufacturing, transportation, public services, urbanization and computing need to be fed.

Going beyond mere data centers for internet browsing or online banking, generative AI and Bitcoin mining represent the latest civilizational layer as high-performance computing (HPC). HPC energy needs are exceedingly high.

According to the Department of Energy (DoE), data servers already use 10x to 50x more energy (per floor space) than commercial office buildings, while accounting for 2% of total US electricity usage. Given rising data…