Sui's Hashi Bridges $500M to Wake Up a Trillion Bucks in Sleeping Bitcoin 🏦

Layer-1 blockchain Sui is preparing to launch Hashi, a new protocol that allows institutional holders to use bitcoin as collateral for lending without moving assets off the Bitcoin network. The mainnet rollout will begin in phases later this month, according to an Oct. 9 announcement. To support the debut, the project has secured $500 million in capital commitments from a coalition of more than 20 industry partners. The partners include Anchorage Digital, a day-one launch participant that also plans to supply stablecoin liquidity. Sui framed the pre-pledged capital as a mechanism to ensure deep day-one market liquidity rather than a pool of immediate deposits.

The protocol is being positioned to tap an estimated $1 trillion in dormant institutional bitcoin currently sitting on corporate and institutional balance sheets. Organizers said Hashi is designed to offer a compliant and transparent framework for deploying native bitcoin in decentralized finance, an area that has historically required custodians to move collateral onto other chains. Bitcoin was trading at $82,528.87, according to market data cited in the announcement.

Sui executives tied the launch to growing demand for bitcoin-backed borrowing in non-crypto sectors. "Hashi is launching with serious capital and a coalition of industry leaders because institutions want to put Bitcoin to work without giving up the protections they require," said Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Mysten Labs, the original creator of Sui. Anchorage Digital CEO and co-founder Nathan McCauley added, "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. Connecting our institutional clients with Hashi represents a complete paradigm shift."

The announcement situates Hashi within a broader expansion of bitcoin-collateralized lending, with borrowers increasingly using such loans to fund real estate purchases, tuition payments and corporate working capital. Mysten Labs, the original creator of Sui, is the entity behind the protocol, which is governed by a coalition of launch partners that Sui said will provide custody, market-making and infrastructure services.