Hi There!
When CJ Konstantinos, Founder & Visionary of Peoples Reserve, told me he designed a mortgage dashboard so that his own grandmother could use it, I knew I had to sit down with him to learn all about what he and his team were building.
He brought her in to test it, pointed to the screen, and said, "Hey, change this collateral." She looked at him and said, "What's collateral?" His response was simple enough. "This is a good start. We're going to figure this out."
Their moment captures everything about what Peoples Reserve is building, which is, take a complicated financial idea and make it work for everyone.
His story, though, starts somewhere much more personal and much more painful.
One Decision That Cost Millions
Back in 2019, CJ sold 100 Bitcoin to buy a home for his family. He, his wife, and their four children live in what he described as “a regular 2,200 square foot single family home”. At the time this issue is being published, those same 100 Bitcoin would be worth nearly $8 million. At Bitcoin’s peak ( in October 2025), they would have been worth over $12 million.
His home today is not worth $500,000.
After he and his family settled in the house, neighbours excitedly told him he must be happy that his home was increasing in dollar value. CJ saw it differently. He explained that he bought the home with Bitcoin, and compared to Bitcoin, the house was actually losing value. If he sold the home today, he would never recover those 100 Bitcoin again. From his perspective, the dollar value of the home did not matter nearly as much as what he had given up to buy it.
Looking back, he realized he had traded away an asset that grew enormously in value simply to own a house.
The experience exposed a pain point many Bitcoin holders eventually run into when dealing with real estate. CJ wanted to create a solution, so he founded Peoples Reserve two years later in 2021.
He quickly discovered that combining Bitcoin and real estate financing in the U.S. was far more complicated than he expected. Building the platform required navigating regulations, custody solutions, legal structures, and mortgage design. Over time, he assembled a strong team and financially engineered two mortgage products centered around Bitcoin-backed financing.
Peoples Reserve launched in stages, and the full public version is expected to go live on July 4, 2026. The timing is intentional and meant to reflect the broader idea of financial freedom.
Why Bitcoin Changes the Math on a Mortgage
To understand what Peoples Reserve is doing, it helps to understand the truth about dollars. Every year, prices go up, including food, rent, and gas. This happens largely because governments can print more money whenever they want. More dollars chasing the same goods means each dollar buys a little less over time, as was the case with CJ’s home. Economists call this slow erosion inflation.
Bitcoin was designed to work differently. Only 21 million Bitcoin will ever exist. No government, no company, and no central bank can create more. Many people treat it the way earlier generations treated gold, as a form of savings that holds its value because it cannot be diluted endlessly.
Peoples Reserve takes this idea and puts it to work. We treat Bitcoin as the world’s best "pristine collateral."
Because Bitcoin tends to hold or grow in value better than regular savings, Peoples Reserve can offer lower interest rates and design loans in ways traditional banks simply cannot match.
💡What is collateral? 💡
Collateral is simply something of real value that a borrower offers to a lender as a guarantee.
Think of a pawn shop: you bring in your grandmother's diamond ring, walk out with cash, and get the ring back when you repay. The ring is the collateral. Peoples Reserve operates on the same principle, except the ring is Bitcoin, and unlike a diamond ring, Bitcoin has historically grown in value over long stretches of time.
Peoples Reserve Products Explained
CJ describes Peoples Reserve as a “one-stop digital asset management platform”, the kind of place where a Bitcoin holder could eventually handle banking, debit card spending, savings, and home financing without touching five different apps. The mortgage products are what most people come for first.
Here is what the main offerings look like:
1. The Self-Repaying Mortgage (SRM)
The SRM is the Peoples Reserve premier offering and is based on a full 1-to-1 match. Suppose you want to buy a $500,000 house. Instead of scraping together a cash down payment, you post roughly $500,000 worth of eligible asset, like Bitcoin, as collateral. The house itself adds a second layer of security through a standard legal lien. There is no credit check, no income verification, and no proof of employment required. Your Bitcoin is the proof. It is, as CJ described, putting real money on the table.
When you take out any mortgage, including one from Peoples Reserve, the lender places a standard legal claim called a lien on the house. This is exactly what every traditional bank uses on every home loan in the United States.
Think of the lien like this: The house serves as a backup safety net for the lender. You still own the house and live in it, but the lender has the legal right to it until the loan is fully paid off. If payments stop, the lender can foreclose and sell the house to recover their money.
The interest rate can start as low as 3%. For perspective, interest rate on a traditional mortgage in 2026 typically runs between 6% and 7% (according to Bankrate). Getting to 3% works because the lender that Peoples Reserve partners with, a fund called TruFi, treats Bitcoin as engineered money rather than a risky bet. Lower risk for the lender means lower cost for the borrower. Post more collateral than the minimum against a $500,000 house, and the rate can drop further.
The "self-repaying" feature is the part that made me ask a bunch of questions. Every 30 days, the loan can be re-amortized automatically. Meaning, if Bitcoin rises in value, your collateral ratio improves and your interest rate comes down. If Bitcoin falls, the rate edges up slightly, though the movement is tight, roughly 20 basis points for every 10% shift in the collateral ratio. Even a dramatic drop, like Bitcoin falling from its all-time high of roughly $126,000 down to $60,000, would only push a borrower's rate up by around 1.75%. At the end of the loan, 100 percent of the collateral comes back to you. You kept the Bitcoin, and you kept the house.
💡Every 30 days, the loan can be re-amortized automatically.💡
Every single month, Peoples Reserve looks at your collateral — your Bitcoin, gold, or the special stocks called $STRC and $SATA. It checks how much those assets are worth right now and how much income they are earning.
Then the loan gently recalculates your monthly payment to match the time left on the loan. If your collateral has grown in value or is paying good dividends, your new monthly payment can become smaller — sometimes much smaller. In some cases, the collateral itself can cover most or even all of the payment.
It all happens automatically. You do not have to call anyone, fill out forms, or ask for a change. This is one of the ways the Self-Repaying Mortgage can pay for itself over time while you keep every bit of your collateral until the loan is finished.
There are no margin calls and no liquidation risk in this structure. In most other Bitcoin lending arrangements, if the price drops far enough, the lender can force a sale of your collateral, potentially wiping out savings that took years to build. Peoples Reserve removes this trap by using the house as additional security, so the collateral never needs to be sold to cover the lender's exposure.
2. The Bitcoin Mortgage Reserve (BMR)
Not every family has enough Bitcoin for a full 1-to-1 match. The BMR lets a borrower puts in at least 20% of the home's price into a special escrow account made up of Bitcoin (so $100,000 worth of Bitcoin for a $500,000 house). This replaces the traditional down payment and eliminates private mortgage insurance (or PMI).
Standard credit and income checks will apply with this product. The Bitcoin in the escrow grows over time, and if Bitcoin performs at even a fraction of its historical pace, around a 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over long periods, the growth can pay off the mortgage in roughly 8 - 10 years instead of 30.
💡Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is a number that tells you the steady average percentage your money grew by each year, assuming you never took any money out.
💡Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is an insurance policy required by lenders on conventional loans if your down payment is less than 20% of the home's purchase price.
The trade-off is sharing the upside with the lender. You give up about half the gain in exchange for getting into the home with less Bitcoin upfront.
What Counts as Eligible Collateral
Peoples Reserve accepts a short list of high-quality assets. Only four types qualify.
Bitcoin, the primary and preferred collateral
Gold or silver, physical precious metals
$STRC, preferred stock issued by Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy), paying a variable dividend recently running around 11% to 11.6% annually, and listed on Nasdaq
$SATA, preferred stock issued by Strive Inc., starting with a fixed coupon of roughly 12% to 13% plus an 18-month pre-funded dividend reserve for added stability, also listed on Nasdaq
$STRC and $SATA are not cryptocurrencies. They are publicly traded stocks backed by large corporate Bitcoin reserves. They behave less dramatically than Bitcoin itself while still reflecting its long-term value. Post $500,000 of either one as collateral on a $500,000 home, and the dividends they generate, potentially $4,700 to $5,400 per month, can exceed the entire mortgage payment on their own. This is the self-repaying mechanics in full effect.
All collateral is held in a bankruptcy-remote legal entity managed by BitGo, a custody company with a national banking license. Nothing is lent out or used for any other purpose without the owner's consent. Every mortgage contract includes a no-rehypothecation clause, a legal promise making it binding that the collateral will not be borrowed against or deployed elsewhere.
⚠️Why the no-rehypothecation clause matters.
In the past, some crypto lenders took customer assets and used them behind the scenes for other purposes. When those arrangements collapsed, customers lost everything.
CJ's legal team at DLA Piper actually pushed back on including the no-rehypothecation clause, telling him they did not think it was necessary. He told them he had watched friends and family lose everything in exactly that kind of scheme, and he was not building something that worked the same way. The clause stayed in the contract.
The Rest of the Platform
Beyond mortgages, the platform includes a full set of financial tools, including:
Bitcoin Bonds, principal-protected instruments that generate regular income while Bitcoin serves as security, also usable for business treasury management.
Debit card, spend the value of Bitcoin holdings without selling any coins.
Lines of credit, borrow against Bitcoin or Bitcoin Bonds at conservative ratios.
Yield vaults, park assets to earn additional returns.
Treasury services, white-glove help for businesses managing Bitcoin holdings.
PRN loyalty token, hold or lock Peoples Reserve Network (PRN) tokens to move through four tiers (Basic, Silver, Gold, and Diamond) and unlock lower rates, better upside splits, fee discounts, and access to additional products
Free calculators at peoplesreserve.com let anyone enter a home price, a collateral amount, and an assumed Bitcoin growth rate to model possible outcomes before committing to anything.
How This Can Build Family Wealth Over Time
The practical story here is about compounding. A family uses the SRM to buy a first home while keeping every coin they own. Over years, if Bitcoin continues to grow, the collateral ratio strengthens, the rate drops, and the monthly payment shrinks. Eventually the loan costs almost nothing to carry. At maturity, the full Bitcoin stack returns.
A younger family member who received Bitcoin as a gift or earned it early can later use it to buy their own home without ever selling the asset that may have multiplied in value many times over. An elderly homeowner can refinance an existing house through the platform, free up cash flow, and still hold onto savings. One generation's patience can give the next generation a real head start.
What You Should Know Before Getting Excited
Every product involving Bitcoin carries genuine risk, and Peoples Reserve is upfront about this. Here is a summary of the main ones.
Risk | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
Bitcoin price volatility | If Bitcoin falls and stays low, the self-repaying feature slows and full monthly payments remain due |
Variable interest rates | SRM rates move with the collateral ratio. A significant Bitcoin drop raises the rate, within defined limits |
New platform | Full launch is still ahead; real-world performance data is limited and regulatory approvals are ongoing |
No government backing | Loans are not FDIC-insured and carry no government guarantee |
Learning curve | Terms like collateral ratio and re-amortization are unfamiliar to most borrowers and some traditional advisors |
Illustrative projections | Verify that calculator is using current Bitcoin price. Past performance does not guarantee future results |
Anyone considering Peoples Reserve should speak with a licensed financial advisor, a tax professional, and a real estate lawyer before signing anything. The company is also clear about these points directly on its website.
What Comes Next
The ideas behind the Peoples Reserve are built on principles that have existed for centuries, principles like using something truly valuable as security, keeping rates fair, and designing the loan so the borrower's savings can work for them rather than sitting idle.
CJ Konstantinos sold 100 Bitcoin in 2019 to buy a house worth far less today, wishing someone would have asked him “Are you sure you want to sell your Bitcoin?” He founded a company so no one else has to make that same trade. So, the next time you find yourself looking at a home you love and wondering whether you would have to let go of your Bitcoin to get it, there will be a new set of asset management tools worth worth exploring.
This article for the Rhoda Report provides analysis of fintech products for informational purposes. All financial decisions involve risk. Consult with a qualified professional before entering into any lending agreement. Interest rates and terms are based on the announcement at Bitcoin 2026 and are subject to change based on market conditions and credit approval.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is strictly educational. The information this report provides does not constitute investment, financial, trading, or any other advice. You should not treat any of the report’s content as such. Please be careful and do your research.
