“It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” — Henry Ford

Markets are running hot. Bitcoin’s latest price move is triggering a familiar reflex: reaching out on the risk curve. From altcoin rallies to bitcoin treasury companies, investors are being lured by higher beta, often as a way to “catch up” after feeling late to bitcoin.

It’s a pattern as old as markets themselves. Unit bias leads newcomers to seek “cheaper” coins. Greed masks structural risk. And financial intermediaries repackage proximity to bitcoin as if it were bitcoin itself.

Some of these vehicles may outperform bitcoin over a short window. But they do so by adding managerial, counterparty, regulatory, and execution risk on top of an already volatile asset. The wrappers may change, but the tradeoffs are the same.

Be sure to read the fine print. And as always: know what you own.

In a sea of noisy speculation, proxies, and packaging, one signal remains clear—bitcoin is the only investable asset addressing the foundational issue: how to anchor monetary value in thermodynamic reality.

Ford’s Currency of Effort

Over a century ago, Henry Ford sounded the alarm. He saw clearly the structural weaknesses of fiat money and the dangers of a system built on political discretion and central control. In 1921, he proposed a radical alternative: an energy-backed currency.

“Under the energy currency system, the standard would be a certain amount of energy exerted for one hour...to connect currency with energy.”

His proposal made the front page of the New York Tribune under the headline:
“Ford Would Replace Gold With Energy Currency and Stop Wars.”

Ford believed that anchoring money to energy would neutralize its use as a tool for manipulation and war:

“The essential evil of gold in its relation to war is the fact that it can be controlled. Break the control and you stop war.”

An energy standard, he argued, would democratize money. It would reflect effort, not power. It would reward creation, not control. Ford’s system never came to be.

The necessary infrastructure—global communication, cryptographic security, decentralized networks—didn’t exist. But the economic thesis was remarkably prescient: monetary trust must be earned through work.

The Kilowatt Dollar

Decades later, Buckminster Fuller echoed the same diagnosis. In Critical Path (1981), he proposed a global monetary standard rooted in energy. He called it the Kilowatt Dollar.

“Wealth is the product of energy times intelligence: energy turned into artifacts that advantage human life ... The world energy system is the only realistic basis for a lasting economic accounting system.”

Fuller wasn’t arguing for redeemability in energy units, just as gold isn’t redeemed for electricity or labor. His point was that energy expenditure should serve as the anchor of value.

Fiat money, he warned, was costless to produce at the margin. That made it vulnerable to manipulation, misallocation, and inflation.

A money grounded in energy, by contrast, would restore clarity. It would discipline economic behavior and force tradeoffs to reflect real-world inputs. Markets, he believed, needed feedback from physics—not just policy.

Bitcoin is the first large-scale realization of that idea. It ties monetary issuance to thermodynamic cost. Scarcity is not enforced by decree but emerges from competition and expenditure. Proof-of-work converts electricity into verifiable units of account. There is no central issuer. Just incentives, machines, and mathematics.

Bitcoin captures the core principles behind energy-backed money:

• Scarcity must be earned through measurable inputs
• Value emerges from work, not allocation
• Security (hashrate) scales with effort

These attributes are what distinguishes bitcoin from all other assets, synthetic derivatives, or discretionary currencies.

Tesla’s Thermodynamic Imagination

Nikola Tesla never authored a monetary blueprint, but his worldview fits into the same intellectual lineage. He believed that energy—not paper fiat—was the true substrate of civilization.

“Throughout space there is energy. It is a mere question of time when we shall have succeeded in attaching our machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.”

Tesla saw human progress as a function of how intelligently we capture and apply energy. He envisioned decentralized infrastructure, wireless transmission, and open access to power. Bitcoin fits within that arc. It doesn’t generate energy—but it transforms it into economic structure.

Proof-of-Work converts electricity into cryptographic certainty. Each block is a timestamped record of real-world work. The system functions through physical law, not social trust. Critics see energy use. Tesla would have seen structure.

Tesla believed that the future would be built not through control, but through alignment with nature’s principles. That is what bitcoin does. A monetary protocol wired into the physical world.

The System Exists

Ford wanted to tie money to work. Fuller wanted to anchor value in physics. Tesla imagined networks where power was free and open. They shared a vision of monetary systems that honored cost, rewarded efficiency, and resisted capture.

But they couldn’t build it. The internet didn’t exist. Neither did distributed ledgers, cryptographic security, or global digital coordination.

Bitcoin changed that.

It closes the loop between energy and economics. It embeds cost into the foundation of monetary issuance. It creates a system where monetary trust is earned, not granted—where scarcity reflects real input, not political decree.

“We are powerfully imprisoned by the terms in which we have been conducted to think.” — Buckminster Fuller

Bitcoin introduces new terms.

An entirely new foundation for value.

And no one can turn it off.

Chart of the Week

"Your portfolio returns need to stay above the Thin Red Line. Otherwise, you’re losing wealth. Only a few assets consistently outperform monetary expansion. Bitcoin leads the pack in wealth creation by a country mile. It’s a matter of keeping up with the Joneses or beating them. You choose."

— Tephra Digital on X

Quotes of the Week

"With alts, the trade is selling before everyone else.

With Bitcoin, the trade is buying before everyone else."

— Samson Mow on X

"The problem with altcoin treasury companies is that the asset side of their balance sheet is far less liquid and far less scarce than bitcoin. Altcoins can’t accrue value long term, they will continue to be demonetized by bitcoin."

— Pierre Rochard on X

Podcasts of the Week

Path to $1M Bitcoin with Vijay: The Bullish Case Revisited

In this episode of The Last Trade, hosts Jackson Mikalic, Michael Tanguma, & Brian Cubellis, are joined by Vijay Boyapati, author of The Bullish Case for Bitcoin, to discuss nation-states, ETFs & bitcoin’s political capture, why BTC’s biggest risk is now off the table, how treasury stocks may drive speculative excess, & more!

Animal Spirits, A Very Stable GENIUS, & Mispriced Execution Risk: Why Bitcoin Wins

In this episode of Final Settlement, hosts Michael Tanguma, Liam Nelson, & Brian Cubellis break down regulatory tailwinds in DC, banks entering the space, market psychology, capital destruction, key deals of the week, & more!

The Great Repricing: Gold, Bitcoin, and the End of Easy Money

In this episode of Scarce Assets, hosts Jackson Mikalic and Michael Tanguma are joined by Josh Phair, Founder and CEO of Scottsdale Mint, to discuss sovereigns stacking gold quietly & aggressively, bitcoin + gold: the new barbell for sound money, Wyoming as the Fort Knox of the future, the bull market in counterparty risk, & more!

Closing Note

Onramp provides bitcoin financial services built on multi-institution custody. To learn more about our products for individuals and institutions, schedule a consultation to chat with us about your situation and needs.

Until next week,

Brian Cubellis