Proof of Work is an Economic Function

Proof of Work is a competition between miners where miners have to burn more energy than each other to win a block but must burn it more efficiently than their competitors to win consistently.

This sets up a situation where miners must buy energy at lower and lower rates for longer and longer periods to secure better prices, plus they need to vertically integrate into ASIC chip manufacture to secure the best chip supply chains.

This means Proof of Work is an Economic Function where miners must incur a real cost, which they then need to cover by selling their commodity (Bitcoin) back to the market. Consequently, they attach economic weight to the Bitcoin commodity and will typically refuse to sell it at a loss.

So Bitcoin is a 'data commodity' and it has economic 'weight' and mining is an economic 'function'.

The consequence of any economic function is to become more economical, which inevitably means a few large pools will always dominate the mining process.

Mining by necessity de-anonymises miners.