How Rootstock is building Bitcoin-Backed Stable Assets for Real-World Adoption

Welcome to Fintech TV.

I'm Remy Blair.

Rootstock Labs develops decentralized technologies designed to extend Bitcoin's functionality.

The company focuses on providing tools for developers supporting the Rootstock ecosystem and also advancing decentralized infrastructure.

The team launched the Rootstock Infrastructure framework, AKA RIF, a set of protocols intended to simplify building on.

Bitcoin.

Joining me here is Diego Dalivar, cofounder of Rootstock to Talk, applications built on principles aligned with Bitcoin's core values.

Well, Diego, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for inviting me, Remy.

I'm very happy to be here.

Well, first and foremost, we know that Bitcoin, the crypto major, has been making plenty of headlines in 2025, but how do you view this cryptocurrency?

Well, for me, Bitcoin since the beginning was not only a cryptocurrency or an asset or digital gold as people understanding that that's what has been extremely successful these days, and I think it has peered through into the traditional financial system, so now it's kind of commonplace, but for me, Bitcoin is also decentralized financial infrastructure.

And as such, I think it will secure the financial system of the future.

So we now are seeing only the tip of the iceberg of what Bitcoin can bring to society.

And because I come from Latin America, for me it was always about like using not only Bitcoin as an asset but Bitcoin as a security infrastructure to enable the financial system that could serve any human being regardless of their economic conditions.

Yeah, and I'm glad you bring that up because we're here at the New York Stock Exchange, right, the center of traditional finance and capitalism and as we're talking, the New York City mayor.

Is here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

But ever since Circle's IPO here, there's been a lot of focus on stablecoin, and people in the US and developed economies are getting a better understanding of stablecoin.

So tell us your backstory and your view on Bitcoin.

Well, you know, that's a very interesting thing because when I started Rostock with my co-founders.

Actually, what I realized is Bitcoin was even more volatile than it is today.

So I realized people who are living day to day, week to week, month to month, or even quarter to quarter could not afford being exposed with most of its economy or wealth to Bitcoin.

So the first model we wanted to implement in Rostock was the peer to peer monetary system, a digital forkns where you have Bitcoin backing the insurance of the dollar.

That protocol exists in the Rostock ecosystem.

It's called money on chain.

Because conceptually we wanted to provide what now has the name of a stable asset.

We are talking about 2014, 2015, so it didn't have a name when I when we started, but we wanted to provide that because, you know, people in Argentina, in Latin America, you know, we are exposed to so many financial prices, devaluation of the currency, so the dollar is a safe haven for most of them.

So we wanted to provide those solutions.

But following the Bitcoin ethos of decentralization, so using Bitcoin infrastructure, using Bitcoin security, indeed Rostock has 85% of the hashing power of Bitcoin of the miners of Bitcoin are supporting Bitcoin and Rostock at the same time, um, but bringing the solutions that people need to live day to day, that is basically.

You know, store of value for their wealth that is depending if you can store value for 6 to 9 months is the dollar if you can store value for 2 or 3 years or more, it's Bitcoin.

But then on top of that, build lending systems, exchange systems, so all the things that exist in traditional finance, but on this new infrastructure model backed by Bitcoin.

So that's a little bit of the vision of what we are doing these days and stable assets were part of the original design of what we were building.

Yeah, and if you take a step back and talk to early adopters of Bitcoin or even stablecoin, they'll tell you how things are very different on the global landscape in 2025.

And you mentioned inflation.

So when we're talking about inflation here in the US, if you're in developing economies and you see Americans freaking out about 0.5% increase or even 1% increase in inflation, you must think that's quite humorous. situations because we're talking not just 0.5% or even 1 or 2%, we might be talking about double digit percentage increases in inflation in different countries and Argentina had more than 25% inflation for over 15 years.

And then you know in the end of that cycle because those cycles always end in hyperinflation, we were reaching around 200%.

So and I think you know inflation is scary, but also from the perspective of the thing that Roads like the lower part, like the less wealthy parts of the population's value the most, because if you are middle class or upper middle class or and above, you have ways to hedge yourself again you can move most of your wealth to other things the dollar, Bitcoin, and But if you, you are living month to month, basically inflation will erode your purchasing power capability, you know, so I think it's a big driver of poverty in our region, inflation.

So building solutions where people can escape inflation is very important to protect their wealth and make them thrive.

Yeah, and here on Wall Street or even Main Street America we've never experienced that kind of inflation that you're talking about.

So let's just say a loaf of bread is $5.01 month, then the next month you might need a stack of those bills.

Is that correct?

When you are in hyperinflation, it's correct.

It's like they were changing prices daily twice or thrice a day, so it was like the loaf of bread has a different price in the beginning of the day than in the end of the day.

And there's another thing that that creates a lot of distortions because once you have inflation, like ongoing inflation for years, basically.

The financial businesses starts being more relevant than the productive side of the economy because you're always like doing money management because otherwise you're losing exactly and instead of like focusing on having better productivity, optimizing the buy side, what you are doing is all the time like shops were like accumulating stock of things instead of like.

You know, moving goods fast, which is the logical thing.

It's like my business is like deliver goods in a fast velocity because my profit is like on on the many times I can use my capital to earn profits that in inflation environments doesn't work so people sometimes was like hoarding things because that was the way they were protecting wealth.

So that's very unhealthy and recessive for the economy.

As well, so so I think.

I think that's it.

This is an important thing.

It's like thanks to blockchain and Bitcoin is the blockchain, no, but then you have like other blockchains that are interconnected to Bitcoin and offer different capabilities.

But thanks to what Bitcoin brought to the world, now we have a neutral financial framework where we can all. and interact and that creates also links between cross countries so we are talking about the dollar, the dollar being used in Latin America, so that creates that interoperability on a social level, on a country to country, on a peer to peer level that I think it's very valuable for society and you know I'm if you want to. an anarchist by in my way of thinking, no, it's like I want freedom, I want people to be, but I understand that this integration will be done together with corporations, with governments, so I think.

The revolution of Bitcoin is providing optionality, not forcing everybody to go if you want to self custody and you want to, you know, manage your own money and you are an anarchist at heart, you can do it, but also, you know, a corporation can use it.

A government can use it, so that's the important thing is like you can, you know, everybody has the option of operating their own principles and and find and that optionality is what was missing in the traditional system.

So so what Bitcoin brings is that optionality, you know, for financing that interoperability between countries, between people like is.

Eroding information that is not contributing value to society.

So basically information will remain as long as valuable for people, for organizations, for small and medium business, for governments.

So intermeation needs to be there because we will always delegate our power, our wealth to somebody in some situations.

But you know it needs to be optional.

The moment that intermediary is not serving a purpose anymore, I can take my power back, my wealth back, and put it somewhere else.

Well, Diego, thank you so much for joining me.

A lot of food for thought there, but a very important conversation, so I appreciate your time and thank you for sharing your insights.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much for inviting me.