I get you're desperately trying to sound smart, but in this context, "energy" meant electricity. Because that's what it takes to produce cryptocurrency. Not the general definition in the realm of physics study. And electricity can most certainly be created and destroyed.
When you buy gold, you have the gold. It's backed by the thing you have.
When you buy cryptocurrency, you don't have the electricity that was spent in fabricating those numbers. You don't get sent a battery in the post. You have nothing.