Hex Trust, a fully licensed digital asset services provider, has partnered with the Stacks Asia Foundation to capitalize on the $180 billion market opportunity around the Bitcoin ecosystem.
As part of the partnership, the custody platform will gain support for the Stacks layer and all related digital assets, and implement future on-ramps for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
The partnership signals growing institutional interest and a maturing industry around Bitcoin-based DeFi, according to Kyle Ellicott, investor relations lead at Stacks. He told Cointelegraph:
Ellicott told Cointelegraph that the entrance of Hex Trust “speaks to the increase in consumer demand in Asia” for Bitcoin ecosystem products.
The partnership could also enhance the “financial utility of Bitcoin for our institutional clients,” wrote Calvin Shen, the chief commercial officer at Hex Trust.
Hex Trust partners with Stacks Asia. Source: Stacks
Similar integrations could add more utility to the Bitcoin network, in a growing paradigm known as Bitcoin DeFi or BTCFi. In this case, one of the first integrations will add support for SIP-010, which is the fungible token standard on Stacks — enabling easily trackable and transferable tokens.
Interest in building DeFi capabilities on the Bitcoin network has been growing since the 2024 Bitcoin halving, which introduced the Runes protocol — the first fungible token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain.
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Institutional crypto demand is on the rise in Asia
Institutional crypto demand has been on the rise in the Asian markets, growing “exponentially each year,” according to Stacks’ Ellicott.
The growing institutional interest was part of Stacks’ success in securing partnerships across the continent for service providers interested in institutional offers, added Ellicott. He further explained:
“The Asian markets have been foundational for crypto since its early inception, and the institutional demand grows exponentially each year. The rise of the Bitcoin Ecosystem which has since much of its development in Asia…”
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Numerous other projects are building more utility around Bitcoin, including Hermetica, which launched the first Bitcoin-backed synthetic dollar, USDh, which debuted with a 25% yield for investors.
Hermetica is a Stacks-native Bitcoin DeFi protocol. The firm’s CEO and founder, Jakob Schillinger, said that Bitcoin DeFi could be the next significant opportunity in crypto.
“We believe Bitcoin DeFi will match and eclipse the size of Ethereum DeFi in the next 5 years,” Schillinger told Cointelegraph, adding:
“We're already seeing months where Ordinals trading volumes are higher than volumes for Ethereum and Solana NFTs combined. With over $1 [trillion] in latent BTC capital, Bitcoin DeFi is primed for explosive growth.”
Binance Labs and Tim Draper-backed Zest Protocol also launched a Bitcoin-based token that pays staking yield for holders
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