What if I tell you that, Bitcoin is a “Sound Money” that provides a superior alternative to any monetary system we’ve ever seen?

Prior to paper money, people used precious metal coins (such as gold) because they maintained strong monetary properties: scarcity, durability, divisibility, portability, fungibility, and acceptability (the six monetary properties).

So, what is bitcoin backed by?

Nothing. Sound money, like gold, isn’t “backed.”

Only money that lacks inherent monetary properties must be backed by another money that maintains those properties. The idea that our base layer money needs to be backed by something is thinking from the era of paper money.

Bitcoin does not require backing, it has inherent monetary properties superior to any other form of money that has ever existed.

As we transition out of the fiat era back to sound money, it will be important for individuals to remove the narrative that money is something that needs to be backed.

But isn’t bitcoin backed by energy?

Isn’t bitcoin backed by proof of work?

Bitcoin is ENABLED by these things, and many others: electricity, software, incentives, algorithms, hardware, suppliers, customers, contracts, property rights, real estate, communities, etc.

When you say it is “backed” by these things you are implying that it is redeemable money and are retarding this definition just as fiat practitioners have. You wouldn’t say that gold is backed by mining infrastructure, international agreements, property rights, etc.

You would say that it’s supply is enabled by those things.

Extract from: Bitcoin Magazine