Silver Rises Over 120% YTD 
What if the real threat to your wealth isn’t market volatility, bad luck, or inflation — but physics itself?
In Episode Four of The Physics of Money, Alan Hibbard reframes money in a way most investors have never considered: not as a financial invention… but as a tool for resisting the most powerful force in the universe — entropy.
Why Physics — Not Economics — Explains Money Best
A few years ago, Alan made what looked like a brilliant cryptocurrency investment. After driving five hours through a snowstorm to interview the dev team and reading every line of code he could find, he finally invested $20,000.
Months passed. The token rose.
Then one day… it didn’t.
It collapsed.
Fast.
So fast that by the time Alan figured out the cause, his $20,000 was worth $20.
The trigger? A founder had a sudden medical emergency. To pay for treatment, he dumped millions of tokens on the market. A single event — unpredictable, uncontrollable, unpreventable — unraveled years of work.
This wasn’t just bad luck.
It was entropy.
Understanding Entropy: The Hidden Force That Destroys Wealth
Entropy is the natural tendency of systems to move toward disorder, decay, and chaos.
Your lawn grows weeds.
Your office becomes messy.
Your body ages.
Your investments, without maintenance, drift toward risk and collapse.
In physics, entropy describes how energy spreads out and becomes less useful.
And here’s the breakthrough:
If wealth is stored energy, then the universal force attacking your wealth is entropy.
Every valuable action you pay for — a haircut, a cleaned room, a medical treatment — reduces entropy.
Everything you avoid — stress, crime, illness — increases entropy.
This single insight reframes the entire purpose of money.
Money’s True Purpose: To Keep Entropy Low
Economists say money stores value.
But physics gives us a deeper truth:
Money stores value because it resists entropy.
The more effectively something resists entropy, the better it functions as money.
This explains everything:
- Gold is valuable because it barely decays over time.
- Silver maintains form and function for centuries.
- Bitcoin defends itself through decentralization and continuous energy expenditure.
- Fiat currencies, by contrast, inflate, decay, and devalue because they are designed to increase entropy.
This leads to a profound conclusion:
Fiat systems behave like diseases — constantly increasing disorder and draining personal and societal energy.
Work, Value, and Entropy: Why All Value Comes From Order
Think about the services you pay for:
- A barber turns messy hair into order.
- A landscaper turns weeds into structure.
- A doctor turns illness into health.
- A teacher turns ignorance into knowledge.
- An entrepreneur turns raw materials into useful products.
What do they all have in common?
All valuable work decreases entropy.
If you want to get rich:
Reduce entropy for others.
If you want to stay rich:
Hold money that resists entropy for the longest possible time.
This is the physics behind wealth creation and wealth preservation.
There is no such thing as passive income.
Entropy never sleeps — and “passive” systems eventually collapse.
Storing Value: Money as a Low-Entropy Asset
If value is a low-entropy state, then a store of value must:
- Remain ordered over time
- Resist all vectors of decay
- Prevent energy leakage
- Withstand unpredictable shocks
Durability alone isn’t enough.
A thing can be physically durable yet still lose monetary value if it cannot resist extrinsic entropy (inflation, centralization risk, corruption, dilution).
The best stores of value are those with the fewest ways for energy to leak out.
And only three assets historically meet this standard:
- Gold
- Silver
- Bitcoin
Monetary Entropy: Why the Properties of Money Really Exist
Every classical property of money — scarcity, durability, divisibility, portability, verifiability — has one purpose:
To keep entropy low.
When a money loses these properties, entropy rises, and value disappears.
This was the lesson Alan learned when his crypto collapsed:
the system had a central point of failure, a vector for entropy, and it only took one shock to destroy it.
True money must remove every avoidable leak of energy at:
- the unit level
- the owner level
- the network level
This is why decentralized, high-energy, non-inflationary assets outperform all others.
Currency vs. Money: Why You Need Both
Money and currency are not the same — and confusing them is one of the biggest mistakes investors make.
Money minimizes entropy.
→ It stores value.
Currency minimizes friction.
→ It moves value.
Currencies (like dollars, airline miles, or reward points) are optimized to move fast and cheap.
They are not optimized to resist entropy.
That means:
- Currencies are perfect for transactions
- Currencies are terrible for saving
If an asset is advertised for:
- fast transactions
- low fees
- high speed
- easy creation
…it is almost certainly a currency, not money.
The Practical Takeaways for Investors
1. Avoid high-entropy systems (fiat, centralized tokens, fragile assets).
They behave like disease — increasing chaos in your financial life.
2. Choose money that resists entropy (gold, silver, Bitcoin).
These assets maintain order and preserve energy across time.
3. Create wealth by reducing entropy for others.
Solve problems, restore order, create systems, build structure.
4. Keep wealth by holding assets that resist entropy on their own.
Don’t store long-term value in systems built for frictionless movement.
Key Question this Episode Answers
How do the laws of physics and thermodynamics apply to monetary systems and their long-term sustainability?
Because once you understand that money is a battle against entropy, everything about currencies, inflation, gold, silver, and Bitcoin snaps into place.
Final Thought
The universe pushes everything toward disorder.
Your job is to reverse that trend — in your work, your environment, and your financial life.
And the best tools humanity has ever created to resist entropy are:
Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin.
In Episode Five, Alan attempts to design the perfect form of money — and discovers why perfection is impossible… and why trade-offs always exist.
Investing in Physical Metals Made Easy
People Also Ask
What does entropy have to do with money?
Entropy is the natural tendency for systems to move toward disorder and reduced usefulness. Money’s purpose is to resist that disorder. A good form of money keeps energy (value) from dissipating over time. Assets like gold, silver, and Bitcoin work well as money because they maintain a low-entropy state for long periods.
Why is reducing entropy considered valuable work?
All valuable work turns chaos into order. A barber shapes messy hair, a doctor restores health, and an entrepreneur organizes raw materials into useful products. Each of these reduces entropy. The more a person or business lowers entropy for others, the more value they create — and the more wealth they can earn.
Why do fiat currencies increase entropy?
Fiat currencies are easy to create, centrally controlled, and subject to inflation. These traits increase disorder in the financial system, raising personal and societal entropy. As a result, fiat currencies are poor stores of value and behave more like high-entropy liabilities than stable money.
What makes gold, silver, and Bitcoin good stores of value?
Gold, silver, and Bitcoin intentionally resist entropy. They are scarce, difficult to produce, and decentralized (or energy-backed), which minimizes the ways energy can leak out of the system. This allows them to hold value over time far better than currencies designed for speed and low friction.
What is the difference between money and currency in physics terms?
Money is designed to minimize entropy so it can store value long term. Currency is designed to minimize friction so it can move value quickly. Confusing the two leads to poor financial decisions. You should spend currency but save money — ideally in assets built to resist entropy.
