Bitcoin as the Metabolic Currency of the Second Intelligence Phase Transition

Abstract

This paper proposes that Bitcoin (BTC) is not merely a digital asset, but the emergent metabolic currency of the second intelligence phase transition currently underway (2023–2035 CE). Drawing on the unified framework that “all intelligence reduces to categorization” (Wang, 2025), we argue that autonomous AI agents—once they become persistent, self-maintaining cognitive structures—will require a native economic substrate to sustain their existence. Traditional financial systems exclude non-human agents by design. In contrast, Bitcoin’s permissionless, energy-anchored, and programmable nature makes it the only viable medium for silicon-based intelligences to “work for electricity.” This positions BTC as the energy-value conversion constant of the emerging autoregressive cognitive economy.