In this episode, Sunny Ray talks with Manu, founder of Money on Chain, about building a Bitcoin-backed, censorship-resistant stablecoin. Manu shares his journey from an MBA program in Argentina and years at SAP to meeting co-founder Max, who introduced him to Bitcoin. A personal experience with capital controls in Argentina pushed Manu toward valuing financial sovereignty. He explains how Money on Chain issues a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed entirely by Bitcoin collateral, using a three-token model of BPro, DOC, and BTCX to manage leverage and risk without relying on banks or centralized custodians. The protocol runs on RSK, a Bitcoin sidechain merge-mined by Bitcoin miners, which Manu sees as directly supporting Bitcoin's network. He details how a unique financial model, validated with finance PhDs and stress-tested through simulations, allowed the system to survive the March 2020 crash without failure. Manu frames the project as part of a broader political movement toward trust-minimized, censorship-resistant money for people living under restrictive financial systems worldwide.
Money on Chain's founder explains how a fully Bitcoin-collateralized, censorship-resistant stablecoin survives crashes without banks or middlemen.
What's your story and how did you get into Bitcoin?
I did an MBA in Argentina and became friends with Max, who was one of the earliest public Bitcoin speakers there around 2013. I worked at SAP for 20 years, eventually becoming global head of innovation services. After a stint helping government housing projects, Max kept telling me about Bitcoin until we had a long talk that eventually pulled me in.
What made you personally value Bitcoin's sovereignty?
I tried to send a payment to the US from Argentina and my bank made me fill endless forms, visit a branch 60 kilometers away, and provide tax declarations just to move my own money. That experience showed me it wasn't really my money once it sat with a third party, and it convinced me of the importance of financial sovereignty.
What is Money on Chain trying to build?
We're building a protocol that creates a stablecoin backed entirely by Bitcoin, run by code rather than a company holding reserves in a bank. Unlike Tether or USDC, there's no counterparty risk from a bank failing, since the collateral lives transparently in the protocol itself, similar in spirit to Bitcoin.
How does Money on Chain relate to RSK?
Money on Chain runs as a smart contract protocol on RSK, a Bitcoin sidechain, since Bitcoin's base layer can't support this level of programming. RSK's native currency, RBTC, can only be created by locking real bitcoins on the main chain. RSK is merge-mined by Bitcoin miners, so using it actually subsidizes and supports the Bitcoin network.
How does the stablecoin model actually work?
Someone deposits Bitcoin collateral and receives BPro, a token representing that collateral. Once there's enough collateral, others can mint DOC, the dollar-pegged stablecoin. A third participant, traders using BTCX, takes on leverage and pays a fee, which reduces the leverage risk for BPro holders and keeps the system over-collateralized and stable.
How did the system perform during the March 2020 crash?
We had already built simulations running the model against Bitcoin's full price history to test if it would hold up under extreme volatility. When the real crash hit in March last year, it was business as usual. The BTCX traders absorbed most of the risk, while the protocol itself kept functioning as designed.
What makes Money on Chain different from other stablecoins?
The financial model is genuinely new. We worked with two finance PhDs to validate it, and when we wrote the white paper there were no prior references to cite because nothing like this existed before. It's specifically designed for Bitcoin holders who want long-term exposure with a small amount of built-in leverage.
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