Interview with Money On Chain’s CEO: “Bitcoin is great, but for many uses, it has the problem of volatility”
Money On Chain is a decentralized platform that issues stable currencies backed with crypto. On July 17 in Argentina, Cointelegraph in Spanish spoke with the CEO and co-founder of the firm, Max Carjuzaa, to learn more about the project and also his perspective on the world of cryptocurrencies.
Fernando Quirós (FQ): How did you get into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies?
Max Carjuzaa (MC): I discovered Bitcoin in 2009 looking for distributed processing applications. That’s how I got to Bitcoin mining. I researched a bit about Bitcoin and the Blockchain. At that time it seemed to me that blockchain was a great idea, but that Bitcoin had no support. It was by the time where there were no exchanges and bitcoin had no monetary value. After mining a week with CPU and wallet, I discarded it. At the end of 2011, I read an article about Bitcoin and its use on the Deep web, and how Bitcoin now had value. It seemed silly to me that people would pay for a token generated on a computer, I couldn’t understand how anyone could think that that had value. I began to investigate the phenomenon a little to see what was behind these crazy people, and I understood why Bitcoin had value. From that moment I never left this environment again. I researched everything I could, I learned everything I could, I gave Bitcoin introductory talks since 2013, I did mining and here I am, doing Money On Chain.
FQ: What is Money On Chain about?
MC: Money On Chain is a stable asset platform that issues stable currencies backed with crypto and is decentralized. We understand that Bitcoin is great, but for many uses, it has the problem of volatility. We solved that problem by implementing smart contracts. Using RSK technology.
FQ: And how did the idea come up?
MC: Of necessity. All of us who have had cryptocurrencies at some point need or want to get away from volatility, sell on an exchange and transfer to the bank is expensive and slow. And history teaches us that it is dangerous to leave money in exchanges.
FQ: At what stage is the project?
MC: We are close to launching. In the fourth quarter of this year, we will have the product running on the RSK main net.
CF: When are you going to launch in the test net?
MC: We will open it to the public at the beginning of August, although we have the smart contract running on the testnet since January of this year.
FQ: Why did you choose to work with RSK?
MC: It is the only platform that allows smart contracts with Bitcoin as collateral and without counterparty risk. After Bitcoin, it is the blockchain with the highest mining capacity, they implement instant off-chain payments using Lumino Network that will shortly be linked to Lightning Network.
FQ: How was the experience?
MC: The experience with RSK was very good. It is a network that has not experienced downtimes or other problems.
FQ: What plans do you have in the short and medium-term?
MC: In the short term we want to go out to production with our first product that is the Dollar On Chain. We are also very advanced with a company from the industry to provide them a stablecoin using their own token as collateral, which we also expect to come out in October.
In the medium-term, we want to position ourselves as the best and safest stablecoin in the market.
FQ: What potential do stablecoins have?
MC: Stablecoins have enormous potential. I would have to talk about the types of stablecoins. A stablecoin like Libra, which has a FIAT collateral deposited in bank accounts, managed by people, is not the same as a stablecoin like ours, which works completely decentralized, where the collateral is Bitcoin, which is part of the blockchain, where the people have no participation in the security of the assets that are used as collateral.
But basically, decentralized stablecoins allow enormous efficiencies in payment circuits, allow the construction of financial services that do not require trust to operate and where there is no one with the power to divert funds or break the rules. They are a phenomenal financial inclusion tool allowing billions of unbanked people to access these new financial services that are going to be built. Think of almost free and instant money remittances, low-rate peer loans, credit cards without plastic and available to anyone, anyone can pay for any service on the Internet without having a credit card.
FQ: And how are they different from Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?
MC: The difference with bitcoin is that a stablecoin has no volatility. The difference with other stablecoins is decentralization; There is no money in a bank account, the collateral is bitcoin and the solution is completely self-contained in the blockchain. There are no deposits at any entity that someone could steal or pack.
FQ: How do you see the crypto ecosystem in Latin America?
MC: Very strong, it is a very strong blockchain hub. Latin America has a very important and recognized crypto community. There are very good projects in the region.
FQ: Do you think regulations are needed?
MC: What is needed is regulatory clarity. It is very important that regulators sit down to talk about the issue, decide what they are going to do and do it. But it is also very important that regulators are informed, that they work together with organizations, NGOs, companies that are around this to reach a regulation, or non-regulation, logical and that is useful to the whole world. Not that they kill this industry, which can bring huge efficiencies to the economies of the countries.
FQ: Considering the volatility and devaluation of currencies like the Argentine peso, do you consider that stablecoins could be an alternative?
MC: Yes, of course. But anyway you have to understand that people in general trade in their own currency, so a stablecoin in pesos is going to be used as well. In the future, we will use stablecoins that follow the price of a strong currency in search of stability and we will use the local currency nominees daily.
FQ: What changes do you see on the horizon?
MC: With this technology we can change the lives of billions of people who do not have access to banking products, who cannot pay for a service like Netflix over the Internet, who cannot buy a book on Amazon, who cannot export their services over the Internet because they don’t have how.
