In physics, the observer is often conflated with the measurer. Bitcoin provides a model where measurement is an objective, internal process—the mining of a block. Observation is the separate, subsequent act of verification by a node. This clarifies a long-standing ambiguity in physics.

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Crypto's primary advantage is its ability to automate processes that rely on expensive human-based trust (brokers, lawyers) with software and cryptography, which offer mathematical guarantees at a fraction of the cost.

Bitcoin's finite supply is presented as a necessary boundary for a complete logical system, without which measurements become meaningless. This is analogous to physical constants like Planck temperature, which act as boundaries for physical laws, suggesting boundaries are essential for defining reality.

By converting energy (joules, Boltzmann entropy) into a specific configuration of Satoshis (bits, Shannon entropy) through mining, Bitcoin provides an operational bridge between the physical and information worlds. This resolves the long-standing disconnect between the two forms of entropy.

The mempool, containing all possible but unconfirmed transactions, acts as an analogy for quantum superposition. It represents a pre-measured state of potential. The mining of a block serves as the "measurement" that collapses this potential into a single, deterministic, classical reality.

Recent physics experiments suggest the universe isn't "locally real," behaving like a simulation that only renders what is being observed. A tree falling on Mars may not actually fall until it's measured, similar to how an unseen area in a video game doesn't render.

The paper posits that Bitcoin blocks represent discrete, indivisible units of time. This provides a real-world, observable model that challenges the long-held assumption in physics that time is a continuous, infinitely divisible parameter, thus solving the double-spend problem logically.

The paradigm shift with crypto is not about trusting a new entity like a developer. Instead, it eliminates the need for interpersonal trust by allowing anyone—especially competing businesses—to verify the system's integrity through open-source code.

We are inherently part of the physical universe, making it impossible to step outside of time to measure it. Bitcoin, as a human-made system that produces its own discrete time via blocks, offers a novel external perspective, allowing us to observe the mechanics of time from the outside in.

Instead of viewing time as a fourth dimension appended to space (spacetime), the authors propose "time-space." Here, time, as an ordered sequence of thermodynamic commitments (blocks), is the foundational constraint from which spatial and causal order emerge as derivative properties.

Experiments testing quantum theory have conclusively proven that "local realism" is false. This means physical objects, like electrons, do not possess definite properties such as a specific position or spin until the moment they are actually measured or observed, challenging our classical intuition about reality.