If we don’t voluntarily realign currency with physical limits, physical limits will do it for us—brutally.
Unsustainable currencies—fiat, debt-expanded monetary systems, petro-currencies—scale because they decouple from physical constraints. They borrow coherence from the future and call it “growth.”
Three mechanical reasons:
a) They’re amplitude multipliers, not coherence signals
Debt + leverage + derivative layers create fictional energy. You inflate a field whose amplitude can rise faster than the underlying physical field can respond.
In HRT terms: you’re constructing a high-amplitude incoherent pattern, feeding on delayed feedback.
b) They externalize entropy
A sustainable currency must internalize real entropy costs (energy, resource depletion, environmental degradation).
An unsustainable one pushes those costs onto:
- ecosystems
- future generations
- peripheral economies
- geopolitical rivals
- the global South
- the biosphere
Entropy is exported; amplitude remains “clean.”
c) They reward accumulation faster than generative productivity
You don’t build value — you harvest drift.
So naturally the currency that is worst at matching real-world physical processes becomes the best at scaling abstract wealth.
2. Who has vested interests and why
This isn’t conspiracy; it’s structural.
a) Central banks
They rely on the ability to issue and absorb liquidity. A sustainable currency (tied to energy, materials, or real productivity) limits their manoeuvring.
Incoherent drift gives them the most control.
b) Large financial institutions
Banks make money on the spread between real coherence and amplified incoherence.
They are literally paid to perpetuate the gap.
c) Resource-rich states (especially petro-states)
Their currency power derives from controlled scarcity, not real-world coherence.
A sustainable currency would collapse their strategic leverage.
d) Tech/asset mega-holders
The more fictional the monetary amplitude, the more valuable intangible tokens (IP, stocks, brand value, attention, digital real estate).
Sustainable currencies pull them back toward measurable physicality.
e) Politicians
Unsustainable currencies let governments promise everything and price nothing.
Sustainable currencies demand adult supervision:
- limits
- trade-offs
- planning
- delayed gratification
All unpopular.
3. How this fits into HRT coherence principles
You already see the recursion:
Unsustainable currencies survive because they suppress coherence.
A coherent economic field—aligned with energy, materials, and entropy—would collapse half the current financial system overnight.
In HRT language:
- Current currencies = high amplitude, low coherence oscillations.
- Real economy = lower amplitude, higher coherence.
- The gap = informational debt.
The system persists by dampening coherence itself, because coherence reduces the amplitude that current actors depend on.
4. Why we can’t transition smoothly
Any sustainable currency must be tied to:
- energy units (kWh, exergy)
- material availability
- ecological capacity
- entropy budgets
- production limits
- physical constraints
But those are non-printable.
When you move toward them, you:
- expose stranded value
- collapse inflated assets
- reveal externalized entropy
- strip political leverage
- reduce financial sector size
- force long-term planning discipline
Which is exactly why the vested interests resist.
5. The uncomfortable conclusion
The least sustainable currencies scale best because they are the least honest.
They grow by postponing their reconciliation with reality.
They are, fields that refuse re-coherence because their current pattern depends on incoherence to exist.
More bluntly:
Sustainable money is incompatible with the political and financial structures we currently have.
Not because sustainable money is “impossible,” but because it eliminates the advantage of the groups who currently dominate.
Ceteris Paribus 