The Energy Standard: Why the AI Revolution is Turning Watts into Currency
Our world is clinging to an aging financial ghost. For decades, modern money has drifted away from being an equivalent of tangible goods, becoming instead a bureaucratic tool for managing debt and inflation. While gold proved too heavy for the digital age and cryptocurrency largely dissolved into a sea of speculative "emptiness," a new hard limit is emerging. In 2026, we are reaching a tipping point where we can no longer afford to "print" value. We are moving toward a reality where energy is the only true unit of account. We are hitting a physical wall that no central bank can bypass: Energy. The End of the Crypto Diversion The dream of decentralized digital gold is hitting a physical wall: the power grid. As AI and robotics drive an explosive demand for electricity, the world can no longer justify wasting massive amounts of energy on crypto mining. In 2025, data centers consumed between 450-860 TWh globally; forecasts for the coming years suggest this is just the ...
