The Pomp Podcast
#602: True Decentralized Finance on Bitcoin with Max Carjuzaa
- Money on Chain builds Bitcoin-collateralized stablecoins and DeFi products on RSK (a Bitcoin sidechain using merge mining), designed to preserve Bitcoin's censorship resistance and security rather than trading those properties for speed or lower fees.
- The protocol offers four main tokens: DOC (a Bitcoin-backed stablecoin with smart-contract-enforced peg), BitPro (a liquidity token for long-term Bitcoin holders that earns yield), BTCX (2x leveraged Bitcoin exposure that pays interest to BitPro holders), and MOC (a governance token currently centralizing protocol upgrades, moving toward full decentralization).
- Argentina's severe inflation (40–50% annually) and capital controls make stablecoins a survival tool rather than a trading instrument; Money on Chain users include unbanked Argentinians and Venezuelans hedging currency collapse, plus Bitcoiners seeking yield without selling their BTC.
- The protocol operates at small scale (≈500 BTC locked) and grew organically without large VC funding because its liquidity mechanism self-sustains; adoption spans remittance corridors and some companies integrating DOC into balance sheets.
- Money on Chain collaborates rather than competes with other Bitcoin DeFi platforms like Sovryn, designing tokens to be composable across protocols and emphasizing Bitcoin ethos—non-custodial, decentralized, resistant to seizure—over pure innovation metrics.
- Governance decentralization remains in progress (estimated 4–6 weeks away from full MOC-holder control); Max argues that full decentralization is necessary only for censorship resistance, not efficiency, and sees the centralization→decentralization path as natural for robust protocol evolution.