In response to this essay here: https://iris.to/note1827cyug4pmtuyc4sgu29ffhyxkaayv9372utc6p2zngym8nfrn5saek99v

The essay’s opening move—treating money as an ethical instrument rather than a neutral tool—is sound and useful. If every unit of currency functions like a vote, then capital allocation is moral action. The claim that Bitcoin steps into the “ethical void” left by fiat is the core thesis: “All In Bitcoin” is presented not as speculation but as a categorical moral stance. This framing is effective, but it needs one sharpening: the morality at stake is not simply about intention (“support the good system”) but about structure. A system is moral under a Kantian test only if it can be universally adopted without requiring exceptions, special privileges, or concealed victims. That distinction matters throughout the piece.

When the article invokes the categorical imperative, it argues that fiat fails universalization because it relies on arbitrary issuance and hidden expropriation, while Bitcoin passes because its rules are transparent, permissionless, and equal for all. This is mostly right, but the universalization test is stricter than “works well if everyone used it.” It also demands that persons never be treated merely as means. Fiat clearly fails for systematic reasons—debasement, bailouts, and legal asymmetries instrumentalize the public. Bitcoin can pass, but only under sovereign usage conditions. If Bitcoin is used chiefly through custodians, KYC choke points, and analytics-driven surveillance, then some people again become mere means to others’ control. So the article’s ethical claim holds only if we specify the mode of use: self-custody, privacy-preserving practice, and direct settlement are part of the universalizable form.

The section on property and time preference is directionally correct and benefits from clearer language. Capital is stored lifetime—time, energy, and skill condensed into a balance. Storing lifetime in a system designed to erode it is a moral error. Bitcoin turns sacrifice into verifiable proof; fiat turns sacrifice into an IOU that someone else can rewrite. Where the article says Bitcoin promotes low time preference, the caveat is that this effect appears only when one actually thinks and accounts in Bitcoin. If someone hoards BTC while mentally pricing everything in fiat with the plan to time a sell, the high-time-preference frame persists under a new ticker. The moral claim requires a shift of unit-of-account and horizon, not just a change in the asset held.

The discussion of civil courage is compelling but can confuse courage with recklessness. Accepting volatility to reject an unjust system is praiseworthy; exposing dependents to unnecessary ruin is not. Kant’s ethics prohibits using others merely as means—even for an honorable end. The moral form of “All In” is categorical alignment, not maximal financial exposure. If one’s position is so leveraged that a drawdown forces liquidation and re-entry into fiat dependency, the act betrays its intent. Sustainability belongs inside the maxim: moral money practice must be livable without collapsing the actor or their family back into the very conditions they meant to escape.

The reformulated maxim—“Invest only in a money whose universal adoption strengthens freedom”—is an excellent bridge but still too broad. Some ways of “using Bitcoin” do not strengthen freedom in practice. If most users adopt via custodial apps, ETF wrappers, and identity-linked rails, the surveillance surface grows and the universalization drifts toward capture. The condition must be stated precisely: it is the sovereign use of Bitcoin—keys held by the user, transactions settled peer to peer, privacy guarded—that scales freedom. The technology’s properties make this possible; the community’s practices make it real. Education and accessible tools become ethical requirements, not mere conveniences, because without them, non-technical users are shunted into custodial dependency and the universal moral claim weakens.

There are a few adversarial questions the article implies but does not spell out. What if miner concentration or state pressure leads to censorship? Bitcoin’s validation model answers this: sovereignty rests with nodes that verify, not miners who order transactions. Attacks can disrupt liveness but not rewrite the rules if users verify. What about energy? Proof-of-work is not a wasteful quirk; it is the cost that anchors truth to physics. Still, this should be clarified as a positive feature—thermodynamic sacrifice that deters arbitrary issuance—because critics will otherwise reframe it as harm. What about equality of access? If most people can only onboard through regulated custodians, we recreate exclusion. This is why sovereign tooling, privacy defaults, and circular economies are not optional side projects; they are ethical infrastructure that keeps the maxim universalizable.

The essay’s conclusion highlights a moral commitment to truth, freedom, and responsibility. That commitment matures when we translate it from a slogan (“All In Bitcoin”) into a specific, testable standard. The universalizable act is not simply holding more Bitcoin; it is holding and using Bitcoin in a way that cannot be commandeered by third parties, does not instrumentalize others, and can be sustained across time without forcing a retreat into fiat. One sat in sovereign custody, transacted privately and directly, aligns with the maxim more than a fortune locked in an ETF.

In plain terms, the corrected categorical imperative is this: act with your capital only in ways that turn your sacrifice into proof that no one can falsify, in a system that would remain non-coercive even if everyone used it, and in a manner that is sustainable for you and respectful of others as ends in themselves. Fiat fails this test by design. Bitcoin can pass it in practice—when used sovereignly, taught responsibly, and defended continuously against capture. This refinement preserves the essay’s ethical thrust while making it resilient to the common failure modes: custodial mimicry, fiat-denominated thinking, reckless overexposure, surveillance creep, and the comforting illusion that “Bitcoin exposure” is the same thing as Bitcoin freedom.