Sovryn Bitocracy

The on-chain governance system that owns and upgrades the Sovryn lending and trading contracts on Rootstock, a merge-mined Bitcoin sidechain.

Bitocracy is the governance layer of Sovryn, a lending, borrowing and trading protocol. Sovryn's own documentation places it: "A DAO built on the RSK Bitcoin sidechain." Rootstock is merge-mined by Bitcoin miners and its native asset, RBTC, is a one-to-one peg against bitcoin, so the security assumptions trace back to Bitcoin proof of work. They do not trace back to the Bitcoin base chain the way the Bisq DAO's coloured satoshis do, and this entry should be read with that distinction in front of it.

The mechanics are documented down to contract addresses. Two governors, both instances of GovernorAlpha, sit on Rootstock mainnet. The Admin governor changes settings such as interest rates and fees, needs a 5 per cent quorum and a simple majority, and executes through a 24 hour timelock. The Owner governor can move funds from the vault and change contract logic, needs a 20 per cent quorum and more than 70 per cent support, and executes through a 48 hour timelock. Under SIP-0046 all ownable contracts holding user funds are owned by Bitocracy. Voting power comes from staking SOV on a quadratic curve weighted by amount and lock duration, up to a maximum stake of 1,092 days, with a slashing penalty of up to 30 per cent for unstaking early. An emergency multisig can pause the system, which Bitocracy can vote to reassign.

Sovryn dates the DAO's creation to 20 January 2021. The initial 100 million SOV was allocated by fund, including 25 per cent to a founders fund and 16.9 per cent to early funders, both on vesting schedules. That is a materially different starting point from a DAO with no premine, and it is stated here because it is the first thing a reader should weigh.

The forum shows it still functioning as a decision-making body rather than a label: SIP-0094 was posted in August 2026, financial reports and disclosures were published through 2026, and a leadership transition proposal went through it in February 2026. Listing is not endorsement.

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