Defi.money was a cross-chain, decentralized stablecoin protocol centered around its USD-denominated stablecoin, $MONEY. It operated using a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) model built on a licensed refactor of Curve Finance's crvUSD architecture. The protocol ceased operations in mid-2025 after failing to achieve sufficient product-market fit. ^[2]​

Overview

Defi.Money is a protocol that issues MONEY is cross-chain and compatible with any EVM blockchain, with a focus on Layer 2 solutions for lower transaction costs. It is CDP-based, allowing creation from a variety of collateral types, including altcoins, LP tokens, and tokenized real-world assets. The protocol is built on a licensed refactor of Curve Finance’s crvUSD architecture. It features an Automated Loan Protection system that automatically manages collateral to protect users from short-term price volatility. Defi.Money simplifies interactions with the protocol via one-click ZAPs, supports exotic collateral, and enables seamless cross-chain liquidity, providing low-cost, permissionless, and censorship-resistant access to stablecoins. ^[1]

Sunsetting

Defi.money announced its shutdown on May 7, 2025, citing a lack of product-market fit and insufficient traction in the competitive CDP stablecoin landscape. The team determined that continuing operations without achieving sustainable growth, even with potential token launches or yield farming, would not be responsible for the community or the broader DeFi ecosystem.

The user interface and all platform services, including borrowing, leverage, and staking, were scheduled to go offline on June 1, 2025. However, the underlying smart contracts remained operational, allowing users to interact directly and withdraw funds. Users were advised to remove deposits from liquidity pools and platform positions before the UI was deprecated. Post-shutdown, there was no further development, updates, or team support, and community channels were also decommissioned.

While the protocol ceased operations, all smart contracts continued to function without incidents or loss of funds, and the team committed to open-sourcing its protocol and UI/UX features to support the future development of the Curve ecosystem and related cross-chain stablecoin infrastructure. ^[2]

Features

Peg Keepers

Peg Keepers are smart contracts that help maintain the $MONEY stablecoin at its 1 USD peg by managing specific Curve AMM pools, each containing $MONEY and another stablecoin that is expected to maintain its peg. They continuously check whether the pool has more or less $MONEY relative to the other asset and, if necessary, withdraw or deposit $MONEY to restore a roughly 50/50 balance, aligning $MONEY’s price with the paired stablecoin. Anyone can call the contract to perform these adjustments and earn a portion of the profits generated. Currently, the protocol operates five Peg Keepers on Optimism and five on Arbitrum, each managing pools for crvUSD/MONEY, USDT/MONEY, USDC/MONEY, DAI/MONEY, and FRAX/MONEY. All Peg Keepers have a debt limit of 1,000,000 $MONEY, and the outstanding debt influences borrowing rates within the protocol. ^[8]

Oracles

Defi.money developed a custom Oracle system optimized for Layer 2 and sidechain environments, where gas costs are low. The Oracle calculates an exponential moving average (EMA) from Chainlink feeds to smooth out jittery price data, particularly important for less-liquid assets, thereby preventing unnecessary collateral trades and protecting users during loan management. For chains not supported by Chainlink, defi.money relies on RedStone Oracles using a push model, where data is regularly updated on-chain via a relayer that enforces predefined conditions, ensuring reliable, timely price feeds. ^[9]

Market Hooks

Defi.money developed Market Hooks as modular contracts that can modify or trigger effects in the protocol based on predefined conditions, without requiring changes to the core contracts. These hooks allow the protocol to add new features, implement user-specific adjustments, and enable analytics in a flexible, upgradeable manner. An example is the L2SequencerUptimeHook, which halts minting of $MONEY and withdrawals of collateral if a Layer 2 sequencer goes offline, resuming 30 minutes after the sequencer is back online. This prevents users from exploiting outdated oracle prices or manipulating the protocol during network downtime, while still permitting deposits, repayments, and loan closures. Other potential uses of market hooks include dynamic fee adjustments, user discounts for staking, and whitelisting, making them a versatile tool for risk management and protocol enhancement. ^[10]

MONEY

$MONEY is a USD-denominated, decentralized stablecoin that is interoperable across all EVM-compatible blockchains. It is permissionless, censorship-resistant, and optimized for Layer 2 chains such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base, allowing for lower-cost creation and management. $MONEY is collateralized through a system of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), in which users deposit assets such as BTC or ETH to mint new $MONEY. The deposited collateral is slightly over the amount borrowed, providing a safety margin. If its value falls below a certain threshold, the smart contract automatically trades portions of the collateral to maintain full backing.

The protocol’s Automated Loan Protection system structures collateral into multiple bands within a liquidity pool, spreading potential liquidation points over a range. This system allows collateral to be converted gradually rather than liquidated instantly, reducing the risk of short-term price volatility. If collateral value recovers, the smart contract can reconvert it, ensuring users’ positions remain secure while maintaining efficiency and scalability. This combination of CDP-based overcollateralization and Automated Loan Protection distinguishes $MONEY from other stablecoins, providing a decentralized, transparent, and self-correcting mechanism to preserve the USD peg while enabling flexible, scalable use of collateral. ^{[3] [7]}

sMONEY

sMONEY is a yield-bearing version of $MONEY that accrues value over time through a share-price model, where 1 sMONEY initially equals 1 $MONEY, and the exchange rate increases as yield accumulates. The yield paid to sMONEY holders comes from protocol revenue. It is adjusted based on the trading price of $MONEY: the further below $1 $MONEY trades, the higher the revenue allocated to sMONEY, which helps maintain the peg by incentivizing users to stake $MONEY.

sMONEY is created by wrapping $MONEY through the protocol’s Earn interface, initially on the Optimism chain, with the ability to bridge to other supported chains. To convert sMONEY back into $MONEY, users must burn their sMONEY, which initiates a 7-day cooldown. If additional sMONEY is burned during an ongoing cooldown, the period resets for that address, though it can be avoided by using a separate address. After the cooldown concludes, the underlying $MONEY can be withdrawn. ^[4]