Most Christians rightly rejected Bitcoin—it makes early adopters wealthy at others’ expense, rewards hoarding, and violates “the first shall be last.” But what if different cryptocurrency design could embody Kingdom values?
Key ideas:
Three structural constraints: Cannot fund wars, cannot be inflated (protects vulnerable), cannot be issued on credit (breaks wealth-compounding systems)
Algorithmic stability: Fair entry for all, no first-mover advantage (different from failed TerraUSD—I warned against that)
Burn-to-speak: Voice through sacrifice, not accumulation. When you burn tokens to speak, value flows to all token holders—we’re socializing the attention economy
Structural protection: Can’t be weaponized against Black communities or any group (no human discretion in access)
One dimension among many: Complements racial justice, creation care, peacemaking—doesn’t replace them
Status: Exploratory, not proven. Algorithmic stability is unsolved territory. This is centuries-long vision, not urgent call to action.
Most Christians rightly rejected Bitcoin and cryptocurrency generally. They saw it for what it largely is: a get-rich-quick scheme where early adopters win at later adopters’ expense. The “HODL” (hold on for dear life—community slang) culture—celebrating becoming rich through early adoption and hoarding—contradicts Kingdom values.
You were right to reject it.
Bitcoin makes the first permanently first, violating Jesus’ teaching that “the first shall be last” (Matthew 20:16). It rewards hoarding over service, contradicting “whoever wants to be first must be servant of all” (Mark 10:44). It incentivizes storing treasures on earth despite Jesus’ explicit warning not to (Matthew 6:19).
A small subset of Christians embraced Bitcoin, seeing value in “sound money” without Caesar’s image. They were partly right—money’s design does matter morally. But they became, in some cases, idolatrous about Bitcoin specifically, unable to see its Kingdom contradictions.
But what if the problems you saw aren’t inherent to all cryptocurrency, but specific to Bitcoin’s design? What if different design choices could embody Kingdom values instead of contradicting them?
Many Christians today feel unspoken economic anxiety—rising costs, uncertainty, exhaustion. The systems governing daily life often feel less humane than they should be.
This raises deeper questions: What would economic life look like in a world gradually becoming the Kingdom of Heaven? How do we work toward that vision over centuries? What does faithfulness require of us now?
Throughout Christian history, faithful people have understood that following Jesus means patient cultural transformation—not through force, but through communities gradually living out (embodying) Kingdom values in family life, work, justice, care for creation, and economic systems.
This essay invites you to imagine: What if monetary systems could reflect Kingdom values? Not perfectly—no human system can. But over time, step by step (incrementally) better, shaped by communities committed to Kingdom ethics.
Scripture tells us we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,” called to be set apart from the world even as we live within it (1 Peter 2:9). This raises hard questions about how Christians relate to the systems that govern ordinary life—especially money.
When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Caesar, his response revealed something profound:
“Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” — Matthew 22:19-21
This is often treated as a narrow instruction about Roman taxation. I believe it’s more expansive.
The coin bore Caesar’s image and therefore belonged to Caesar. We bear God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and therefore belong to God. The implication isn’t just “pay your taxes.” It’s about allegiance. Give to Caesar what bears Caesar’s image. Give to God what bears God’s image.
This isn’t limited to Roman coins. Any government-issued currency belongs—symbolically and legally—to the government that creates it. Paul echoes this: “You also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God” (Romans 13:6). We pay taxes recognizing the state’s currency belongs to the state’s realm.
One reading of this passage suggests Christians should relinquish all claim to money entirely—even refusing to use the state’s currency.
Yet this has never been practically possible. Christians must eat. Communities must coordinate labor and resources. For two thousand years, believers have lived with this tension: confessing Christ’s ultimate lordship while using Caesar’s money for daily life.
But what if that tension exists because there’s never been a genuine alternative?What if the technological constraints that made state-controlled money the only viable option are no longer binding?
History shows money is never neutral. Early Islamic caliphates intentionally minted coins with inscriptions incompatible with Christian confession to hinder missionaries. The currency itself carried ideological power and was weaponized against the church.
Christians have rarely issued their own currency—wisely so. Controlling money invites corruption (Matthew 6:24; 1 Timothy 6:10). Yet the need for faithful economic exchange remains.
The question becomes: If monetary rules encode values and shape behavior over time, can we imagine systems that embody Kingdom values rather than Caesar’s? Not through political force, but through communities voluntarily adopting systems that reflect the values they confess?
A currency designed to reflect Kingdom values would embody specific built-in rules that shape behavior over generations:
Throughout history, governments fund wars through taxation, debt, and inflation. Modern warfare—particularly since abandoning gold—is enabled by credit-based money creation.
When governments can issue unlimited debt or inflate currency for military operations, wars become easier to start and harder to stop. The public doesn’t immediately feel the cost—it’s hidden in future inflation or deferred to future generations.
A currency that cannot be inflated or issued on credit fundamentally constrains war-making. Governments would need to tax visibly and immediately, making war’s true cost undeniable.
This doesn’t eliminate all violence—human sin remains. But it makes large-scale warfare structurally harder. For Christians committed to peacemaking (Matthew 5:9), this matters.
Inflation is a hidden tax falling hardest on those who cannot protect themselves:
Those on fixed incomes (elderly, disabled)
Wage workers (pay increases lag price increases)
Savers (prudence is punished)
The poor (can’t invest in inflation hedges)
Who benefits:
Asset holders (real estate, stocks appreciate)
Those with cheap credit access
Financial insiders (closest to new money creation)
A currency with predictable, stable value eliminates this hidden transfer from vulnerable to powerful. This aligns with biblical concern for honest weights and measures (Amos 8:4-6). Inflation is dishonest scales, stealing value from those least able to protect themselves.
Modern money is created primarily through bank lending. This compounds inequality:
The wealth-compounding effect accelerates:
“For to everyone who has will more be given… but from the one who
has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29)
This is called the Matthew Effect—advantages compound over time.
Those with collateral access credit easily and cheaply
Those without pay predatory rates or are excluded
New money flows first to financial insiders—this is the Cantillon effect (new money flows to wealthy insiders first)
Asset prices inflate before wages
Debt compounds for the poor, wealth for the rich
A currency not issued on credit operates differently:
Money exists without debt
No “first access” advantage
No systemic debt spiral
Wealth accumulation doesn’t automatically compound through the monetary system itself
This doesn’t eliminate all inequality—human sin and other factors remain. But it removes one structural mechanism that systematically compounds unfairness.
Is this contested? Yes. Mainstream economists defend credit money as essential for growth—farmers buying seeds, entrepreneurs starting businesses, communities building infrastructure. They’d say the solution is better credit regulation, not eliminating credit entirely.
This is a genuine trade-off: systemic fairness vs. economic dynamism. The Bible’s Jubilee and usury prohibitions could support either regulated credit OR no credit—it’s not obvious which. I lean toward no credit, but faithful Christians can disagree.
Christian Bitcoiners who saw these three constraints were partly right. Bitcoin can’t easily fund wars, can’t be inflated by governments, isn’t created through bank credit.
But Bitcoin creates new Kingdom problems:
Bitcoin’s hard cap (21 million coins) creates inevitable deflation—each coin becomes more valuable as adoption grows. This incentivizes: Buy and hold forever.
Scripture consistently warns against hoarding: “Do not store up treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19), “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24), the Rich Fool building bigger barns (Luke 12:16-21).
Bitcoin’s early adopters (2009-2013) acquired coins for pennies. Current price: tens of thousands of dollars. This wealth transfer is permanent—late adopters can never catch up. This directly contradicts “the first shall be last” (Matthew 20:16).
Bitcoin rewards timing and hoarding, not service. Jesus taught: “Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44). Greatness comes through service, not accumulation.
Bitcoin also can’t scale to wide adoption. Its 1MB block size limits transactions to roughly 7 per second globally. Visa processes thousands per second. This makes Bitcoin non-viable as actual currency for daily use—imagine waiting hours for your coffee purchase to confirm.
This is a technical problem solvable in a new design, but it shows Bitcoin’s limitations aren’t just theological—they’re practical.
What if currency could maintain stability without deflationary hoarding incentives?
Instead of fixed supply, a currency could adjust its supply (how much money exists) using computer rules (algorithmically) to keep prices stable. Think of it like a thermostat: When prices go up, the system creates less new money. When prices go down, it creates more. This keeps your money’s value steady.
Full disclosure: Algorithmic stablecoins have failed catastrophically. TerraUSD collapsed in 2022, wiping out billions. I actually warned people not to invest because its design was flawed—it relied on confidence in a peg without real backing, creating death spirals when confidence broke.
This design is fundamentally different. TerraUSD tried to maintain a dollar peg through mint/burn mechanics. This design doesn’t peg to anything external. Value is created through attention economics: When someone burns tokens to speak publicly, two things happen:
They destroy their tokens, making everyone else’s tokens more scarce (like there being fewer dollars means each dollar is worth more)
Their message brings attention to the community, making more people want to join
Both effects increase the value of everyone else’s tokens.
How does attention create value?
When people burn tokens to speak, they’re signaling the community is worth participating in. More speech = more community activity = stronger network effects.
People want to join active communities, not dead ones. An active community with good discussions is more valuable than a ghost town. This creates demand for tokens (people want to participate and speak), while burning reduces supply.
Supply down + demand up = value increase for remaining token holders. This is how attention gets captured economically.
Is this proven? No. This is experimental territory with real risk. But it’s a different mechanism than failed attempts.
How this addresses Bitcoin’s problems:
No first-mover advantage - Value stability means early adopters don’t get massively wealthy at later adopters’ expense
No hoarding incentive - Stable value means currency is meant for use, not endless accumulation
Protects vulnerable from inflation - Computer-controlled (algorithmic) stability maintains purchasing power
“The first shall be last” restored - Late adopters aren’t systematically disadvantaged
Scalable design - Not limited by fixed block sizes; can grow with adoption
Perhaps the most distinctive feature: To speak publicly in the community, you must burn coins—permanently destroy them.
This sounds strange until you understand the Kingdom logic:
Anyone can speak cheaply. Burning your own coins to say something costs you—it shows you believe your message is worth sacrificing for. This echoes prophetic tradition: prophets gave up security, reputation, even life itself to speak truth. Costly words carry weight; cheap words are noise.
Doesn’t burning favor the wealthy who can afford to burn more?
Yes—but here’s the crucial difference from current systems: We’re socializing the attention economy.
Right now, the internet runs on this exact model. Wealthy individuals and corporations buy ads to dominate attention. The poor can’t afford ads, so they’re drowned out. And all the profit flows to platform owners—Zuckerberg, Musk, Google.
With burn-to-speak, when someone burns tokens, they’re not paying a platform owner. The value flows to ALL token holders. Your tokens become scarcer and more valuable. If a wealthy person burns 1,000 tokens to speak, everyone else’s tokens just appreciated.
This is still imperfect—the wealthy can speak more often. But it’s more egalitarian than the current ad-based internet, where the poor subsidize platforms with their attention while getting nothing back.
Old Testament: Burn offerings to God cost something real (Leviticus 1)
Early Church: “No one claimed private ownership… they would sell their possessions and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35)
Jesus’ teaching: “Take up your cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23)
Paul’s testimony: “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8)
The burn mechanism embodies the costliness of discipleship: You gain voice by giving up, not by accumulating.
Beyond theological resonance, burning-to-speak prevents:
Spam and manipulation (each message costs real sacrifice)
Bot networks (fake accounts aren’t free)
Shallow engagement (only speak when it matters enough to sacrifice for)
Economic systems don’t transform alone. The Kingdom comes through patient change in every dimension:
Racial justice and reconciliation — dismantling systems of oppression, building beloved community
Creation care — healing our relationship with God’s creation
Gender justice — honoring the image of God in all people
Peacemaking — breaking cycles of violence
Economic justice — including monetary system design
Community formation — faithful life together
These aren’t separate problems. They intersect and require each other. My particular calling is exploring monetary systems. But this complements—never replaces—essential work happening in every other dimension.
Monetary systems in America have been weaponized against Black communities—redlining (loan officers denying mortgages to Black families), predatory lending (banks charging higher rates in Black neighborhoods), wealth extraction by design.
This system structurally can’t be used that way. There are no loan officers to discriminate. No banks to charge predatory rates. No human discretion about who gets access. The computer-controlled (algorithmic) rules apply identically to everyone—Black, white, wealthy, poor, urban, rural.
However—and this matters— if existing wealth gaps mean white Christians adopt first while Black Christians join later without decision-making power in governance, we’ve reproduced inequality through “voluntary” adoption. Fair algorithmic rules don’t automatically create fair outcomes if we start from an unequal position.
How would we actually ensure marginalized communities have voice in governance?
I don’t have full answers, but here are directions worth exploring:
Partner from the beginning: Begin development with Black churches and justice organizations, not white technologists designing alone and inviting others later
Governance representation: Require governing board to have majority representation from communities most harmed by current financial systems
Reduce wealthy domination: Use quadratic voting or similar mechanisms where additional votes cost exponentially more, preventing wealthy capture
Ongoing accountability: Not just “include diverse voices once” but build structural accountability that can’t be removed
These are starting points for conversation, not proven solutions. But they show what intentional design could look like.
Existing monetary systems are enforced by state power. Legal tender laws require acceptance. Taxes must be paid in national currency. Participation is compulsory.
Any Christian approach must be fundamentally different: voluntary adoption based on demonstrated value, never compulsion.
This means I cannot simply declare “Christians should use this currency.” I must persuade—by showing how different rules create better incentive structures, protect the vulnerable, and enable rather than hinder faithful community life.
If the value is real, adoption will grow organically as communities see benefit. If not, nothing eternal is lost. This is how cultural transformation works: slow persuasion over centuries, not force.
The Kingdom doesn’t come through coercion but through communities choosing to embody its values.
These claims involve genuine debates:
War-funding constraint: Most straightforward. Credit-based money demonstrably enables larger warfare. Whether all wars are unjust (pacifist) or some are necessary (just war theory) is a separate question Christians hold different views on.
Inflation harm: Well-documented. The debate is whether some inflation serves other purposes (economic stimulus, easing debt burdens). Christians can reasonably disagree.
Credit money critique: Most contested. Mainstream economists argue credit enables economic growth that lifts people from poverty. Austrian economists and some biblical scholars see it as structurally unjust. Genuine theoretical dispute, not settled truth.
Burn mechanism: Novel—no existing system works this way. Whether it functions as envisioned is uncertain. It’s exploration, not proven solution.
Algorithmic stability: Experimental. Previous attempts failed. This uses a different mechanism but carries real risk.
I present these not as indisputable facts, but as serious considerations worth examining from a Kingdom perspective. Your questions, objections, and alternative ideas strengthen this exploration.
I’m exploring whether monetary system design could reflect certain Kingdom values—not as THE solution to economic injustice, but as one contribution to the church’s patient work of cultural transformation over centuries.
This is not urgent. The Kingdom comes slowly, through faithful work by countless people. This is not central. Many other dimensions of Kingdom work are equally important. This is one person’s particular calling within the church’s broader work of making earth more like heaven.
This won’t solve all economic problems. Better rules serve community; they don’t create faithful hearts. Human transformation through the Holy Spirit, communities living in covenant, justice work in countless dimensions—all remain essential.
Here’s the vision:
Economic systems that, over generations, increasingly reflect the values Jesus taught:
Peace over war (structural constraint on military funding)
Stability over manipulation (protection for vulnerable)
Service over accumulation (burn-to-speak embodies servant leadership)
Fair access over insider privilege (algorithmic stability, not first-mover advantage)
Circulation and generosity over hoarding (designed for use, not endless accumulation)
Can you imagine it—even if you question whether it’s achievable?
If this exploration resonates, I welcome your engagement. If you think other work is more urgent, that feedback is equally valuable. If you see problems I’m missing, please share them—they sharpen this inquiry.
If this resonates:
Pray: Ask whether this aligns with how you understand Kingdom work
Discuss: Share with your community, get feedback—your objections strengthen this exploration
Question: Challenge these ideas. Where are the flaws? What am I missing?
Follow: If you want updates as this develops, [subscribe/follow link]
If you think other work is more urgent:
You’re probably right. Racial justice, creation care, peacemaking,
community building—these are essential Kingdom work. We need all of
it, woven together, over generations, slowly bringing earth into
alignment with heaven.
In future writing, I’ll explore technical specifics for those interested: how algorithmic stability could work in detail, how burn mechanisms could be implemented, what tradeoffs and challenges exist, how communities might experiment with voluntary adoption.
For now, the invitation is simpler: Can we imagine economic life gradually reflecting Kingdom values? Not through force or quick fixes, but through patient work over centuries, communities voluntarily adopting systems that embody the values they confess?
This may prove unwise or technically impossible. The history of money + religion warns against such projects (Matthew 6:24; 1 Timothy 6:10).
But imagination precedes possibility. Before faithful alternatives can exist, someone must imagine they’re possible.
Soli Deo gloria.
For those interested in technical details, further reading:
The Rules Beneath the Economy (credit money mechanics)
The Quiet Engine of Social Breakdown (monetary instability effects)
What Comes After Bitcoin (algorithmic stability design)
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