Hex Trust has formed a partnership with the Stacks Asia Foundation to capitalize on the $180 billion market opportunity surrounding the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Hex Trust, a fully licensed digital asset services provider, has partnered with the Stacks Asia Foundation to capitalize on the $180 billion market opportunity surrounding the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Hex Trust Partners With Stacks Asia Foundation
The custody platform will receive support for the Stacks layer and all associated digital assets as a result of the partnership, and it will also incorporate future on-ramps for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Kyle Ellicott, investor relations lead at Stacks, believes the partnership indicates a maturing industry and increasing institutional interest in Bitcoin-based DeFi. He disclosed to Cointelegraph:
According to Ellicott, the entry of Hex Trust “speaks to the increase in consumer demand in Asia” for Bitcoin ecosystem products, as reported by Cointelegraph.
Calvin Shen, the chief commercial officer at Hex Trust, also stated that the partnership could improve the “financial utility of Bitcoin for our institutional clients.”
In a burgeoning paradigm known as Bitcoin DeFi or BTCFi, similar integrations could enhance the utility of the Bitcoin network. In this instance, one of the initial integrations will include support for SIP-010, the fungible token standard on Stacks, which will facilitate the transmission and tracking of tokens.
Since the 2024 Bitcoin halving, which introduced the Runes protocol, the first fungible token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain, there has been a growing interest in developing DeFi capabilities on the Bitcoin network.
Asia is experiencing an increase in institutional demand for crypto
According to Ellicott of Stacks, institutional crypto demand has increased in Asian markets with an exponential growth rate each year.
Ellicott further stated that the increasing institutional interest was a contributing factor to Stacks’ success in establishing partnerships with service providers throughout the continent who were interested in institutional offers. Further, he elaborated:
“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…”
Hermetica, which introduced the first Bitcoin-backed synthetic dollar, USDh, with a 25% yield for investors, is among the numerous other projects enhancing the utility of Bitcoin.
Hermetica is a Bitcoin DeFi protocol that is inherent to Stacks. Jakob Schillinger, the CEO and founder of the organization, stated that Bitcoin DeFi may represent a subsequent substantial opportunity in the cryptocurrency sector.
Schillinger informed Cointelegraph, “We think that Bitcoin DeFi will surpass the size of Ethereum DeFi within the next five years.”
“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 Zest Protocol, which Tim Draper sponsors, have also introduced a Bitcoin-based token that provides holders with a staking yield.
