Musk Puts Bitcoin in an Energy Frame, While BTC Stays 36% Below Its Value
Musk links money to energy, while Capriole’s Charles Edwards says Bitcoin is trading about 36% below its Energy Value. The debate also touches on the high hashrate level and proof-of-work.
Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk suggested that money in the future will be measured in energy, mass, and power instead of dollars.
- Analyst Charles Edwards says Bitcoin is trading about 36% below its energy value, based on his Energy Value model.
- The debate highlights the difference between Bitcoin as a monetary network and as an asset whose value is tied to energy use.
Elon Musk has once again suggested that money in the future will be measured in wattage and tonnage instead of dollars. At the same time, analyst Charles Edwards says Bitcoin is already powered by that and that BTC is trading about 36% below its energy value. That means the discussion is not just about a striking comment from Musk, but also about how the crypto market should view the value of proof-of-work.
Musk Links Money to Energy
Musk made his comments in an interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson on The Builders podcast. The conversation was recorded in early August and published on October 20. He said that AI and robotics will make money and work less important, but he did not go as far as predicting the end of currencies.
According to Musk, there will still be a currency, but in the future it will be measured in basic physical quantities like power, mass, and energy. That idea is not new. In June, he already wrote on X that mass and energy would replace dollars.
What stands out is that Musk did not mention Bitcoin in this interview. Even so, his reasoning touches on a core point of proof-of-work: the network is directly tied to energy use.
Edwards Sees BTC Below Energy Value
Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, responded within hours to Musk’s comments. His Energy Value model from 2019 tries to derive a fair value for Bitcoin from the electricity miners use. It looks at hashrate, hardware efficiency, supply growth, and a fixed constant per joule, among other things.
According to Capriole, the price often moves back toward that Energy Value over the long run. At the current level of about $83,264 (€74,200), BTC is trading about 36% below that value of $131,057 (€116,900), according to Edwards. That would mean a difference of about 57% to reach that line.
The recent hashrate shows that the computing power behind Bitcoin remains high. Blockchain.com reported a peak of more than 1.1 zettahash per second in October 2025, after which the metric fell back toward 900 exahash per second. It is now back above 1 zettahash per second. At the same time, the price in 2025 fell by almost half from the October record before Bitcoin found a floor around $60,000 (€53,500) in June.
Why This Matters for Investors
For European crypto followers, this matters because it shows how differently market participants view Bitcoin. One side sees BTC mainly as a monetary network, while the other sees it as an asset whose value partly comes from energy use. That debate has been going on for a while, but it carries extra weight now that AI, data centers, and power use are becoming more central in the conversation about digital infrastructure.
Musk himself has also pointed out Bitcoin’s downside before. In May 2021, Tesla suspended Bitcoin payments because of the fossil fuel use of mining. At the same time, hashrate is not a direct power meter, because newer machines can deliver more hashes per watt. That means the comparison between energy and price remains an estimate, not an exact measurement.
Competition for power between AI and miners also plays into that debate: Vitalik Buterin pointed out that AI firms in expensive locations can outbid Bitcoin miners, precisely because mining and AI use electricity and hardware in different ways.
