Stacks Bond 3 Sells Out; BitGo Opens Custody-Based BTC Staking

Stacks' third bond for Bitcoin (BTC) staking sold out in November, and BitGo separately announced on Nov. 3 that eligible institutional clients can now stake BTC held in custody at BitGo Bank & Trust and receive rewards denominated in BTC. Bullish and 21Shares participated in Bond 3, alongside individual holders who joined through pooled staking.

The sellout marks the clearest signal yet that Stacks' native token, STX, has found a functional role in institutional Bitcoin yield strategies. It also extends a distribution channel that had already accumulated material scale: the first two bonds drew roughly 735 BTC by Oct. 15, with Bond 2 alone accounting for 505 BTC paired with more than 6.7 million STX locked on the Stacks chain.

How the bond structure works

Under the current design, participants timelock BTC on the Bitcoin base layer and simultaneously lock STX on Stacks worth 5% of the staked BTC's value. The bond term runs approximately six months. The mechanics tie institutional BTC exposure directly to demand for STX — every dollar of Bitcoin staked through the bond program carries a proportional STX commitment.

For practitioners, the operational consequence is straightforward: participation requires holding and locking two assets across two chains, with the STX leg sized at a fixed ratio. Pooled staking lowers the entry barrier for individual holders, but the dual-lock requirement remains.

What does BitGo's custody option change?

BitGo's announcement changes the custody question for institutions. Eligible clients can stake BTC that remains in BitGo Bank & Trust custody and earn rewards in BTC, rather than moving assets to a separate staking infrastructure. At launch, the option was limited to whitelisted institutional partners — a restricted distribution that signals an initial phase focused on counterparties BitGo can monitor directly.

Stacks founder Muneeb Ali framed the demand on Aug. 27: "Institutions want their Bitcoin to earn Bitcoin without giving up custody or moving it off the base layer." BitGo's product is the first institutional-grade answer to that requirement at the custody layer itself.

What does this change for asset managers and qualified custodians? It removes the operational step of transferring BTC to a staking intermediary, which historically complicated custody agreements, insurance coverage and audit trails. Whether BitGo broadens access beyond the whitelist will determine the addressable market.

The 2027 auction proposal

A proposed open auction for staking capacity could open another participation route under the planned PoX-6 design. Bidders whose offers clear would source STX and lock it alongside their BTC. The proposal targets 2027, but the design remains in research and development, has no confirmed activation date and is subject to the community proposal process.

Stacks also has a 2027 plan for stablecoin borrowing against staked BTC. That lending feature and related market plans remain designs under development, not launched services.

The fee-payment question

STX currently pays transaction fees on the network and forms part of Proof of Transfer, the consensus mechanism under which miners commit BTC to compete for block production and earn STX and fees. Those miner BTC commitments fund participant rewards — the economic engine behind the bond program and BitGo's custody option.

Stacks is exploring whether users and agents could pay transaction fees in sBTC instead. If adopted, that approach could change how much network activity directly requires users to hold STX for fee payment — a material question for STX's demand profile, given that the bond structure already ties staking participation to STX locks. The proposed auction's final design remains subject to the community proposal process, with no activation date confirmed.

The practical timeline to watch runs through 2027: the PoX-6 auction design and the stablecoin borrowing plan both carry that target, and each would alter how institutions and retail holders access Bitcoin-denominated yield on Stacks.