During a recent podcast appearance, Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, has just broken his streak of Bitcoin silence, calling the flagship coin a "fundamental "physics-based currency."
"Energy is the true currency. This is why I said Bitcoin is based on energy. You can't legislate energy. You can't just, you know... pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy," Musk said.
Musk has added that it is very difficult to generate energy, or, especially, to harness energy in a useful way.
He argues that the Kardashev scale, which categorizes civilizations based on the amount of energy they are capable of using, should be used for framing civilizational progress in terms of energy mastery.
Money will disappear as a concept
Musk has also predicted that money will disappear as a concept in the future.
"But, in a future, where anyone can have anything, I think that you no longer need money as a database for labor allocation," Musk said.
Musk has suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics could be big enough in order to satisfy all human needs, thus eliminating the need for money.
The Tesla CEO has mentioned Iain M. Banks’ Culture series as the blueprint for his vision. This is a set of science-fiction novels describing one of the most fully realized post-scarcity civilizations in literature. The Culture is a galaxy-spanning civilization where there is no money, no scarcity, work is optional, people live extremely long, and super-intelligent AIs ("Minds") run almost everything.
"In this sort of far future of the Culture books, ...they don't have money, either. And everyone can pretty much have whatever they want," Musk said.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team