"Rich Dad Poor Dad" author Robert Kiyosaki is well-known for his criticism of the federal banking system and advocacy of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). He recently wr
"Rich Dad Poor Dad" author Robert Kiyosaki is well-known for his criticism of the federal banking system and advocacy of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
He recently wrote a long post on X, reflecting on his transforming turn from working with rock bands to finding wisdom from legendary futurist Buckminster Fuller.
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Kiyosaki wrote an X post on Aug. 13 in which he recalled making a lot of money in the rock music industry while developing merch for bands like the Police, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden. But the money couldn't fulfill the growing emptiness within his soul, he said.
The personal finance author said that he then spent three summers studying under the legendary futurist Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983).
An architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, and philosopher, Fuller developed several architectural designs. A writer of more than 30 books, he was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the U.S., in 1967. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.
Kiyosaki praised Fuller for treating service to others as the highest purpose of life and even credited him with predicting world-changing ideas such as Bitcoin and artificial intelligence (AI).
While the legendary futurist didn't predict Bitcoin exactly as it is, he certainly envisioned wealth as energy.
In an interview from 1967, Fuller addresses the law of conservation of energy and how the concept extended to wealth. He says one of the realizations of the 2000s will be "a realistic, scientific accounting system of what is wealth."
He remarks, "Wealth isn't the goal that the old powers used to have. Wealth is energy."
Fuller refers to theoretical physicist Albert Einstein's law of the conservation of energy which states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The futurist extended the same law to wealth, audaciously arguing that wealth is not going to get lost and is only going to increase.
Hardly a traditional view of wealth, Fuller's view envisions wealth as based on the same principles as that of energy: conserved, neither created nor destroyed.
Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency maintained by a global network of nodes and miners. Miners expend computational power and electricity (energy) to perform proof-of-work, competing to find a valid hash that allows them to add a new block of transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain.
Given that Bitcoin is mined using energy, Fuller’s view that “wealth is energy” has since been interpreted by those like Kiyosaki as anticipating the arrival of a new currency like Bitcoin.
It was 1967 Buckminster Fuller predicted Bitcoin and new wealth.“I'll talk about something that would be one of the realizations by 2018 a realistic—scientific accounting system—of what is wealth. Wealth isn't the gold of pirates—wealth is energy"1967.pic.twitter.com/r0MM65E7kJ
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) December 17, 2020
Even the tech tycoon Elon Musk made a similar comment in a podcast last year, in which he anticipated money to disappear when automation meets human needs at scale. He envisioned a future in which there is no scarcity due to unlimited energy.
“Energy is the true currency. You can’t legislate energy," he said. "It’s very difficult to generate energy, or especially to harness energy in a useful way to do useful work.”
Bitcoin, Musk said, is a currency that already links value to real-world energy expenditure.
"This is why I say Bitcoin is based on energy," he remarked.
Both of his companies, Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) and SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX), hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Even he holds a substantial amount of Bitcoin personally, his father once revealed.
BTC/USD, Source: DecibelBitcoin hit the all-time high (ATH) of $126,080 on Oct. 6, 2025. The cryptocurrency is currently trading 50% lower at $62,833, as per Decibel.
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