Sui's Hashi network to launch with $500M in capital commitments for bitcoin lending

Sui is set to launch Hashi, an institutional network that lets bitcoin holders use the asset as collateral for loans without moving it off the Bitcoin ledger. The project has secured $500 million in capital commitments from more than 20 industry partners, according to CoinDesk; the commitments are not deposits and are meant to let markets open with liquidity.

The design keeps the asset where it is. Rather than bridging across blockchains, a holder locks bitcoin in a vault address on the Bitcoin blockchain, secured by a 2-of-2 multisig that requires cryptographic sign-off from both of Hashi's validators, per CoinDesk.

A separate, independent guardian layer monitors collateral movements and is designed to slow suspicious ones. Hashi then mints hBTC on Sui, described in the report as a digital voucher backed by that deposit, and apps on Sui can use those vouchers for lending, borrowing, credit markets and real-world asset trading. When a holder exits, the voucher is permanently burned.

Sui estimates roughly $1 trillion of bitcoin is sitting unused, and says institutional and corporate balance-sheet holders have lacked a compliant, transparent ecosystem to deploy native bitcoin in decentralized finance.

Anchorage Digital is a day-one launch partner and plans to supply stablecoin liquidity to the network, according to CoinDesk. Nathan McCauley, its chief executive and co-founder, said: “Public companies and institutions hold enormous amounts of Bitcoin, but their ability to use that capital has been constrained by the technology available to them.”

Anchorage has been broadening its product set: this publication reported that the firm acquired payments firm Routable and plans stablecoin and tokenized deposit offerings over the coming quarters.

Tether-backed Utexo plans to issue USDT on Bitcoin this month, with bitcoin-backed loans among its intended features, this publication reported.