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@ Andrew G. Stanton
2025-05-19 03:18:36Web3 talked a lot about freedom.\ But it didn’t ask much of me.
Participation meant showing up, clicking, co-signing, reacting.\ A few emoji could pass a vote. A few posts could signal alignment.\ But there was no real cost.\ No friction.\ No weight.
It felt easy — and eventually, it felt empty.
Bitcoin, by contrast, never asked for my attention.\ It demanded my effort.
Proof of Work isn’t just what secures Bitcoin.\ It’s what shapes the people who actually engage with it.
You can’t fake time.\ You can’t fake energy.\ You can’t fake commitment.
If you want to mine a block, you need to burn electricity.\ If you want to hold your keys, you need to learn what that means.\ If you want to build with Bitcoin, you’re staking skin, not vibes.
Eventually I realized: this isn’t just a consensus algorithm.\ It’s a way of seeing the world.
Proof of Work is an ethic.\ It values restraint.\ It rewards effort.\ It penalizes shortcuts.
It’s the opposite of what most of the internet has become.
Web3 tried to engineer consensus through incentive design — but consensus without cost is hollow.
In Bitcoin, there is no shortcut to agreement.\ You either do the work, or you don’t get a say.\ You can’t tweet your way into a block. You can’t fork your way into consensus.\ You earn your way — through time, electricity, and conviction.
The deeper I leaned into Bitcoin, the more it reshaped me:
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I stopped trying to “move fast” and started focusing on lasting things.
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I began to care more about how work was verified, not just how it looked.
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I started pruning systems — and relationships — that couldn’t carry weight.
Even in how I think about faith, work, rest, and community — I’ve started asking:
Is this real?\ Does this cost anything?\ Is this proof of something?
Fiat culture taught me to act like time was cheap.\ PoW culture reminded me: time is everything.
Fiat let me pretend I could get something for nothing.\ PoW told me the truth — you can’t.
I no longer want to participate in systems that reward shortcuts.\ I want to build slowly, honestly, and with weight.
Proof of Work isn’t just what runs Bitcoin.\ It’s what reforms me.
⚡ If this resonates, zap me some sats — or pass it forward.\ 🤖 Drafted with the help of ChatGPT, who also prefers work over noise.
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