Features · Optional
Commitment Contract
Stake real money on following your own rules for a week. Follow them, and nothing happens — the money was never at risk of going anywhere but back to you. Break them, and it goes to a real charity. Never to us.
A checklist you've already decided to override doesn't feel like anything in that second — it's just text you're about to close. Money sitting on your card, ready to leave for a charity you picked yourself, feels like something different. Not because of the number. Because you chose exactly where it goes if you lose — a specific, real place, not an abstraction — and for one more week, protecting that becomes as real to you as protecting the account.
How It Works
- 1
Pick a stake
Between $5 and $500 — your choice.
- 2
Pick a charity
American Red Cross, St. Jude, Doctors Without Borders, World Wildlife Fund, Feeding America, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- 3
We place a hold, not a charge
Stripe authorizes the amount on your card. It isn't captured — no money actually moves yet.
- 4
Trade your week normally
The contract runs for 7 days. You don't have to change anything about how you already use LAYER 0.
- 5
Clean week: the hold releases
Nothing captured. You keep your money, no fees, nothing to remember to do.
- 6
Breach: it forfeits to your chosen charity
Captured and donated. Not kept by LAYER 0 — that would be a straightforward conflict of interest, so it isn't how this is built.
What Actually Counts as a Breach
This only checks things the app already measures objectively — never a judgment call, because a disputed “why did you take my money” is both a trust problem and a legal one. A week breaches if any of these happen even once:
- —You overrode a Stop verdict (redid the Firewall Check to trade anyway after it told you not to)
- —The Honesty Audit found a ghost trade — one in your broker history that never got logged
- —You logged a day yourself as a rules violation
Why Staking Money Works When a Checklist Alone Doesn't
Loss aversion is one of the more reliable findings in behavioral economics: losing something you already have registers more strongly than gaining the equivalent amount. A pre-trade checklist works on willpower and self-honesty in the moment — real, but the same willpower that's already compromised on a bad day. A real stake adds a second, independent cost to breaking the rules that doesn't rely on willpower at all: it's already decided, sitting on your card, before the session starts.
This is the same mechanism behind commitment-device platforms like StickK, applied to the specific failure modes that end funded accounts.
Common Questions
Is this gambling?
No. The outcome is entirely self-determined — whether you follow your own stated rules — not chance. That's the same legal basis commitment-device platforms like StickK have operated on for years.
Do I have to use this?
No — it's entirely optional. Skip it completely and every other part of LAYER 0 works exactly the same.
What if I don't have a bad week — do I get the money back instantly?
The Stripe authorization hold releases back to you automatically at the end of a clean week. Nothing is ever captured unless a breach is confirmed.
Try LAYER 0 first — the contract is optional
7-day free trial, no card required. Add a Commitment Contract later, only if you want to.
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