Hashi, a new Bitcoin-focused finance protocol, has launched on the Sui blockchain and secured early commitments from institutional crypto firms including BitGo, Bullish and FalconX ahead of a planned mainnet launch later this year. Developed primarily by Mysten Labs, Hashi is built to let native BTC holders earn yield by enabling onchain lending and borrowing, with an initial focus on BTC-backed loans where users can borrow stablecoins against native Bitcoin.
Mysten Labs co-founder and CPO Adeniyi Abiodun says Hashi tackles structural obstacles that have limited Bitcoin’s role in decentralized finance—chiefly dependency on intermediaries and opaque collateral practices. The protocol adds onchain verification and programmatic collateral management to increase transparency and make BTC lending more appropriate for institutional participants. As Abiodun put it, the goal is to replace “trust me” workarounds with verifiable onchain processes.
Unlike approaches that rely on wrapped or synthetic tokens, Hashi is designed to use native BTC directly within onchain financial services. The design combines automated collateral management and transparency with features institutions need to scale participation. Hashi plans to pair multi-party computation (MPC) custody with Sui smart contracts to coordinate collateral and lending flows, and the team says audits and formal verification will be completed before launch. Additional planned capabilities include insurance for BTC collateral and the potential issuance of Bitcoin-backed bonds. A developer network (devnet) is expected soon, with mainnet targeted later this year.
Institutional and infrastructure backers named alongside BitGo, Bullish and FalconX include custodians and service providers such as Ledger and Cubist. Several Sui-based DeFi projects are also expected to support lending, custody and collateral management when the platform goes live.
The move comes as Bitcoin remains lightly used in DeFi: around 0.22% of supply—roughly $3.07 billion—is deployed in decentralized finance protocols, according to DefiLlama. Markets for Bitcoin-backed loans contracted sharply after the 2022 failures of lenders like BlockFi and Celsius, where rehypothecation and opaque risk management amplified losses and eroded trust.
Recently, interest in BTC-backed lending has begun to rebound as firms and regulators explore models that emphasize transparency, stronger collateral controls and lower counterparty risk. In June, U.S. housing regulators asked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to examine whether cryptocurrencies can count as borrower reserves for mortgage risk assessments, signaling growing consideration of digital assets without forcing conversion to dollars. Private firms have also tightened custody practices: Strike clarified that BTC collateral is held in segregated wallets, Coinbase reintroduced Bitcoin-backed loans in the U.S. for eligible users, and lenders such as Ledn have promoted stricter custody and risk controls.
Hashi positions itself within this evolving landscape as an onchain-native option for Bitcoin lending that combines institutional-grade custody, automated collateral management, and audit-backed assurances—aiming to broaden Bitcoin’s practical use in decentralized financial services while reducing reliance on opaque offchain processes.