Sui lines up $500 million to let bitcoin holders borrow against their coins, with Anchorage, BitGo and Ledger on board

Bitcoin's big holders are being offered a new way to borrow against their coins. Hashi, a bitcoin finance network built on the Sui blockchain, will begin a phased mainnet rollout this month with more than $500 million in capital commitments from its launch partners, Cointelegraph and CoinDesk reported, citing an announcement made on Thursday. The money is pledged, not yet deposited, CoinDesk noted.

More than 20 companies are in the launch group, including BitGo, Bullish, Cumberland, FalconX and Ledger. Anchorage Digital has joined as a launch partner and plans to supply stablecoin liquidity.

Here is how it works. A holder locks bitcoin in a vault address on the Bitcoin blockchain. Hashi then mints hBTC, a token on Sui backed by that deposit, which can be used in Sui apps for lending, borrowing and other products. To leave, the holder burns the hBTC and the bitcoin is released. Vault movements need sign-off from Hashi's validators, and a separate guardian layer is designed to slow suspicious transfers, CoinDesk reported. Hashi was developed by Mysten Labs, the company that created Sui.

"Public companies and institutions hold enormous amounts of Bitcoin," said Nathan McCauley, chief executive and co-founder of Anchorage Digital. Sui estimates that about $1 trillion of bitcoin is sitting idle, according to CoinDesk.

What to watch: the first mainnet phase, and how much of the committed money actually arrives.