The entire innovation of Proof of Work (that made bitcoin a success where predecessors failed) is that it is costly in real world energy to corrupt the network.

The entire innovation of Proof of Work (that made bitcoin a success where predecessors failed) is that it is costly in real world energy to corrupt the network. e.g. you can't bullshit your way into finding this number, 000000000000000000024394a1f3cb1a0c16e601a2bd5910635bb2468d2ba316, without expending a huge amount of energy, while you can verify very quickly how many guesses it statistically took to find it. An attacker can't just use words to spin a manipulative narrative, or cut of the head of an organization with a targeted attack. They actually have to commit massive numbers of joules and bit flips. And if an attacker actually acquires that much control over mining power, suddenly they realize they're too heavily invested in the network to want to harm it. In the age of increasing generative AI, proof that you have some tie to real world cost is an increasingly valuable trait.