Entropy Ledger (ENL) is an innovative decentralized digital currency system designed to leverage fundamental principles of physics to create a secure, sustainable, and scalable economic framework. This project uses concepts from thermodynamics and quantum mechanics to ensure a robust platform capable of resisting both contemporary and emerging cryptographic threats.

• Entropy-Backed Value: Tokens are backed by "negentropy", a measurable quantity of order or information inversely related to entropy.
• Offline Mesh Consensus: Secure transactions within a local mesh network using Proof of Proximity (PoP), even when offline.
• Quantum-Resistant Cryptography: Incorporates advanced cryptographic techniques, including Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), to protect against potential quantum computing threats.
• Energy-Efficient Mining: Mine tokens by performing entropy-reduction tasks, utilizing ambient environmental energy without additional power requirements.

Entropy, a fundamental concept in thermodynamics, describes the measure of disorder or randomness in a system. The second law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system (one that is not receiving or delivering energy to its surroundings), the total entropy can never decrease over time. This implies that systems naturally progress towards a state of maximum entropy.

Negentropy or negative entropy is a measure of order and information. In the context of ENL, negentropy is quantified and used as a basis for generating digital currency. Here’s how the process works:

• Entropy Reduction Tasks: Devices perform tasks that locally reduce entropy, such as organizing data, reducing noise, or charging a battery. These tasks are verifiable and require actual physical work, harnessing the ambient energy from the environment (e.g., solar energy, kinetic energy).
• Measurement and Verification: Each task’s contribution to negentropy is measured using principles from statistical mechanics and information theory. The device must prove that its actions have resulted in a genuine decrease in entropy, which is verifiable by other nodes in the network.

QKD uses quantum mechanics to secure the exchange of cryptographic keys. The fundamental property of QKD is that it allows two parties to detect the presence of any third party trying to gain knowledge of the key. This is achieved by encoding the key in quantum states (typically photons), which are fundamentally altered when measured or observed.