Layer-1 blockchain Sui is launching Hashi with $500 million in capital commitments from more than 20 industry partners, an institutional protocol that lets holders use Bitcoin as collateral for lending without moving coins off the Bitcoin network. The mainnet rolls out in phases later this month.

The commitments are pledges rather than immediate deposits, but the pre-pledged capital is designed to ensure markets open with deep day-one liquidity instead of an empty order book.

"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," Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and chief product officer of Mysten Labs, the original creator of Sui, said in the announcement.

How large is the target market?

Sui estimates roughly $1 trillion worth of Bitcoin currently sits idle. Institutional and corporate balance-sheet holders have until now lacked a compliant, transparent ecosystem to deploy native BTC in decentralized finance, according to the project.

The launch tracks a broader shift in Bitcoin-backed finance, where borrowing has moved beyond speculative crypto trading. Holders now use bitcoin-collateralized loans for university tuition, real estate acquisitions, and corporate working capital.

"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," said Nathan McCauley, CEO and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, a day-one launch partner that also plans to supply stablecoin liquidity to the network. "Connecting our institutional clients with Hashi represents a complete paradigm shift," McCauley added.

How does the custody model work?

Hashi avoids cross-chain bridging, historically the attack surface behind several of DeFi's largest exploits. The mechanics:

• Users lock BTC in a vault address directly on the Bitcoin blockchain.
• A 2-of-2 multisig secures the address, requiring cryptographic sign-off from both Hashi validators.
• A separate, independent guardian layer monitors and can slow suspicious collateral movements.
• Hashi mints hBTC, a voucher token on Sui backed by the deposit, which applications use for lending, borrowing, credit markets, and real-world asset trading.
• On exit, the hBTC is permanently burned on Sui, triggering the multisig to unlock and return the original bitcoin to the user on the Bitcoin network.

The separation matters operationally: the underlying collateral never leaves the Bitcoin ledger, and the circulating instrument on Sui is a claim on the locked coins rather than a bridged asset.

What security review has Hashi passed?

Security firm Certora formally verified Hashi's smart contracts. CommonPrefix separately reviewed the cryptography of the protocol's multi-party computation (MPC) system — the dual audit structure intended to satisfy institutional compliance and security standards.

With $500 million already committed and phased mainnet deployment beginning this month, the near-term test is whether day-one liquidity and the multisig custody model can convert a slice of that estimated $1 trillion in dormant institutional Bitcoin into productive collateral.