Proof of Work
Bitcoin restores the value of proof of work to a society that runs on proof of stake. An excerpt from The Human Bitcoin Standard.
[Source: Bitcoin Magazine]
I have a feeling this will be the most important notebook of my life, at least thus far.
My life has been full of notebooks — hundreds of them filled with thousands, if not millions of words.
Notebooks with poems, stories, thoughts, ideas, jokes —
Those notebooks are proof of something — art? Literature? Life? Insanity?
This notebook will be different. This is my “proof-of-work” notebook.
What is proof-of-work?
Proof-of-work is Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism — requiring miners to expend computational power to solve complex puzzles to validate transactions and add new blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain.
It is a way of keeping the system honest. Nothing moves forward unless someone puts in real effort. Miners use energy and computing power to solve tough problems, and that work is what allows new transactions to be added and secured on the blockchain. The system only runs because the work is done, and the miners are rewarded for it.
The idea?
Energy + effort = reward.
Other blockchains, like Ethereum, use a consensus mechanism called “proof-of-stake.”
Proof-of-stake takes a different approach. Instead of proving commitment through energy and computation, it asks participants to put capital at risk.
Validators lock up (or “stake”) their own tokens as collateral and are selected to propose and verify new blocks based on the size of their stake and other protocol rules. If they act honestly, they earn rewards; if they try to cheat or go offline, their stake can be reduced or slashed. Nothing moves forward unless someone has skin in the game.
The idea?
Capital at risk + honest behavior = reward.
Most people in America believe they’re playing a proof-of-work game: work hard, add value, get ahead. Time, effort, credentials, hustle. But in practice, the system increasingly behaves like proof-of-stake. Outcomes are dominated less by ongoing labor and more by what you already own — assets, equity, access, leverage. Capital selects itself to validate the future.
In a proof-of-stake world, effort still exists, but it’s secondary. Returns compound around ownership. Those with stake earn yield; those without are stuck paying fees — rent, interest, inflation — to the validators.
True proof-of-work can only exist if you’re earning or saving in a hard currency. If the unit you’re paid in is constantly diluted, your labor is being converted into someone else’s stake. You’re running, but the finish line is moving.
This is where Bitcoin matters. By anchoring money itself to proof-of-work, Bitcoin restores a degree of proof-of-work to everyday life. You don’t need to mine Bitcoin to benefit from its energy expenditure — you just need to earn, save, or price your labor in a currency that can’t be diluted after the fact. The work is done at the base layer, but its protection flows upward.
Bitcoin doesn’t eliminate proof-of-stake dynamics in society. But it gives proof-of-work a way to survive, by turning human effort into stored value instead of melting ice.
This will be my proof-of-work notebook for The Human Bitcoin Standard, a book about applying the qualities and characteristics of Bitcoin to a human life — my life.
I have thought for many months about these qualities and characteristics (scarcity, immutability, etc.), and in what fashion they could be applied to my life.
What order do I approach them — one at a time or all at once? What are they exactly, and which are the most important?
How do I begin?
Well, I have decided, as of last week, that I have begun — I am now a human aiming to live my life by a Bitcoin standard.
And there is no characteristic of Bitcoin more vital than proof-of-work.
Coincidentally, in my own life right now, work — proof of it — has become critical.
I have worked many jobs in my life: an English teacher, a pedicab driver, a test grader, a freelance writer, a chocolate factory worker, an employee at a shoe store.
While I think I’ve done okay at these jobs, they were never my “dream,” but more of a “means to an end,” a means to a paycheck — and I treated them as such.
Hungover on a pedicab in the French Quarter of New Orleans on a Sunday morning, waiting for a ride, thinking about one day being a writer.
I wasn’t a bad pedicab driver, but I wasn’t the best. Nor was I ever trying to be. Corny and cliché as it sounds, I never gave the job, or any job, “my all.”
Now I am a writer, and I am lucky enough to have a job writing about crypto. The job is difficult, and I am the weak link on the team.
Last week, they fired my co-worker and friend and told us all we needed to “step up our game.” If I get fired from this job, then this book is probably over, or at least put on pause.
But it is more important than one job. To believe in Bitcoin, as I do, is to believe in work.
No matter what job it is, it means doing your best. It means giving as much energy and effort as you can so that you deserve the reward.
That, I know, is not a simple thing to do. To see the beauty of work in work itself.
But without miners putting in work, there is no Bitcoin. And without Bitcoin, well, I don’t think I would be as optimistic about the future as I currently am.
This is the first month of the Bitcoin standard and it is dedicated to work.
Here, I think, is the best poem ever written about work — a poem that is cohesive with a Bitcoin standard:
On Work — Khalil Gibran
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life’s procession,
that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream,
assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow,
then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love.
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep,
“He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone,
is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man,
is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide,
that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks
than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song
made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple
and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
Notes: This notebook will be my ledger, where I will write the “proofs” of my ideas and actions.
Last week, I started to work at least an hour early each day. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I’ll aim to take two hours to work on a couple of articles. I will not be paid for it in overtime, but perhaps in some other way.
My goal is to immerse myself and excel at work in a manner that borders on spirituality. I aim to be one-pointed; to be ferociously focused while I am on the clock.
There is no time for procrastination, worry, or feeling sorry for myself while I am at work.
Work must be treated as a gift; a mechanism in which the fruits of life are to be earned — and that is just, and that is beautiful, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
If my job fires me, it will be because I’m slow or dumb or just not what they’re looking for. But it won’t be because I didn’t put in the work.
Work is also the only way I’m going to get more Bitcoin.
I believe Bitcoin is more than just the soundest, hardest, best money ever created.
I believe it is a philosophy, or at least a blueprint for one.
And I’m not talking about a cyberpunk “f*** the banks and government” philosophy (although god knows how I feel about the banks and government), but a deeper, more sound philosophy — one built on work; one built on building, patiently, with a long-term view of the future.
It is not a utopian philosophy either, but a real, “every-man” philosophy.
Many people have more Bitcoin than me.
But by the end of this book, few people will be more Bitcoin than me.
This is a book about Bitcoin and money that’s not about Bitcoin and money at all.
It’s a book about life, and redemption, and finding a philosophy to live by even as the world around us appears to be collapsing.
Work is what creates value, in my opinion, more than scarcity or even beauty — which seems more like a gift of God than a product of man.
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