📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

This paper reconceptualizes Bitcoin not merely as a financial protocol but as a non-continuous temporal system. Traditional financial and computing systems impose time through synchronized external clocks, whereas Bitcoin constructs temporal order internally through decentralized consensus. We analyze block generation as a probabilistic process, forks and rollbacks as disruptions of continuity, and transaction confirmations as non-linear consolidations of history. Building on this foundation, we reinterpret proof-of-work (PoW) as an entropy-compression mechanism that drives Bitcoin's temporal architecture. In this framework, difficulty adjustment keeps block discovery near the entropy-maximizing regime, the longest-chain rule enforces entropy collapse once a block is found, and recursive hash pointers embed each block within its predecessor, creating a cascading structure that renders reorganization exponentially improbable. Together, these mechanisms compress randomness into a sequence of discrete and irreversible steps, demonstrating how Bitcoin establishes an emergent and convergent notion of time without reliance on external clocks.