inside Recent podcast appearancesElon Musk, the world’s richest man, broke a series of silences on Bitcoin, calling the flagship coin “a fundamental ‘physics-based currency’.”
“Energy is the real currency. That’s why I said Bitcoin is based on energy. You can’t legislate energy. You can’t legislate it and suddenly have a lot of energy,” Musk said.
Musk added that it is very difficult to generate energy, especially to use it in a useful way.
He argues that the Kardashev scale, which classifies civilizations based on the amount of energy they have available, should be used to frame civilizational progress in terms of energy mastery.
The concept of money disappears
Musk also predicts that in the future, the concept of money will disappear.
“But I think in a future where everyone can have everything, we no longer need money as a database for allocating labor,” Musk said.
Musk suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics could become large enough to meet all human needs, thereby eliminating the need for money.
Tesla’s CEO cited Ian M. Banks’ “Culture” series as a blueprint for his vision. This is a series of science fiction novels depicting one of the most fully realized post-scarcity civilizations in literature. This culture is a galaxy-spanning civilization where there is no money or scarcity, work is optional, people live extremely long lives, and a superintelligent AI (the “Mind”) runs almost everything.
“In this distant future of culture books, they don’t have money either, and everyone can pretty much get what they want,” Musk said.
