By the way, there is a deep irony here that most people miss.

Gold is rare for a very fundamental reason. In the normal life cycle of a star, elements can only be fused up to iron. Beyond iron, fusion no longer releases energy. It consumes energy. That breaks the delicate balance inside the star between gravity pulling inward and radiation pressure pushing outward.
As long as fusion produces energy, the star can sustain itself. But once it builds up iron in its core, that process stops. The star can no longer support itself, gravity takes over, and the core collapses. What follows is a catastrophic event: a supernova. Depending on the original mass, what remains is a neutron star or a black hole.
In that violent collapse and explosion, extreme conditions emerge. Temperatures and pressures become so high that heavy elements like gold can finally be formed. It is not a gentle, continuous process. It is explosive, rare, and energetically expensive. Gold is born in a brief, chaotic “soup” of radiation and nuclear reactions during these events.
This is, in a very real sense, nature’s proof of work.
An enormous amount of energy must be expended to create something that is intrinsically scarce and difficult to produce. That is precisely why gold has value. Its rarity is not arbitrary. It is physically enforced by the laws of nuclear physics and stellar evolution.
Bitcoin follows an analogous principle. It forces the expenditure of real-world energy to create new units. This is not waste. It is the mechanism that anchors scarcity in reality.
So when @PeterSchiff claims that using energy to secure a monetary system is pointless, they are ignoring the fundamental fact that the value of gold itself is rooted in the same principle. The energy cost is not a flaw. It is the foundation.