Blueprint Ep. 2 - BTCFi on Sui: How Bitcoin protocols navigated the li

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MomentumⓂ️Ⓜ️T
@MMTFinanceNov 3, 2025

The Spaces examined how BTCFi on Sui performed through the recent record liquidation event and what comes next for cross-chain Bitcoin utility. Host Vinny (Momentum) guided a panel featuring David (OKX Wallet, xBTC), Nathan (Vishwa), and Kyle (Stacks). David outlined xBTC’s growth and OKX Wallet’s deep Sui integrations and education campaigns. Nathan detailed Vishwa’s trustless AI plus ZK verification stack for institutional capital, reporting zero client liquidations and outlining imminent BTC inflows. Kyle reviewed Stacks’ Bitcoin-layer advances (sub‑second execution, Bitcoin finality) and sBTC’s roughly 1:1 peg with nearly 5,000 BTC minted, along with bridge/custody groundwork to move BTC across ecosystems like Sui. The panel contextualized a ~$20B liquidation (nearly 10x FTX scale), SUI’s sharp drawdown, and the need for better downside protection and risk standards. They highlighted strengthening institutional themes—payments, stablecoins, RWAs, multi‑chain infra, and regulation (DAS London)—and macro shifts: declining BTC volatility, supply caps vs fiat expansion, miner behavior, and cross‑region policy moves. Consensus: BTCFi remains a key path to make dormant BTC productive via yield, hedging, and composability, with a priority on safer retail UX, institutional-grade protections, standardized cross‑chain rails, and continued collaboration across Sui, Stacks, OKX, and infrastructure partners.

Momentum Blueprint Series Ep. 2 — BTC Fi on Sui: Navigating the Liquidation Storm and What’s Next

Participants and Roles

  • Vinny (Chief Move Djen), CSO of Momentum — Host and moderator, co-hosted with Sui Foundation.
  • David (aka Bunsen), OKX Wallet — Representing XBTC (OKX-wrapped BTC) and OKX Wallet initiatives on Sui.
  • Nathan, Co-founder & CEO of Vishwa (aka Visual BTC) — Building trustless AI infra for institutional BTC Fi.
  • Kyle, Stacks — Representing Stacks’ Bitcoin layer and SBTC, live from Blockworks DAS London.

Session Context and Agenda

  • Theme: BTC Fi on Sui and how major Bitcoin protocols navigated the weekend’s historic liquidation; outlook ahead.
  • Structure: Protocol intros and Sui activity; breakdown of the liquidation; institutional and macro implications; community Q&A; announcements.
  • Background: BTC Fi is a leading narrative on Sui, accounting for just over 20% of Sui’s TVL. Recent BTC-on-Sui milestones include WBTC (Feb 4) and Lombard BTC (Mar 6), enabling deeper on-chain liquidity and utility.

Protocol Overviews and What They’re Doing on Sui

OKX / XBTC (David)

  • XBTC is OKX’s wrapped BTC that enables users to participate in BTC Fi across chains, with Sui currently seeing the strongest traction.
  • Access path: If you hold BTC on OKX, you can withdraw directly to Sui, auto-converting to XBTC — simplifying cross-chain BTC mobility and participation in DeFi.
  • Metrics and footprint:
    • Around 1,600 XBTC minted, with more than half on Sui; Sui has nearly triple XBTC compared to Solana and double that of Aptos.
    • On Sui specifically, ~860 XBTC reported by David as current holdings.
  • Campaigns and integrations:
    • Multiple Sui ecosystem campaigns, including educational initiatives with Momentum and 11 Sui protocols (wallet connection, staking, liquidity provision, transaction flow).
    • OKX “Boost” (earn points via OKX DEX trading; future flow to Momentum post-TGE).
    • Ongoing OKX Wallet integration across Sui protocols; “Smart Ring” feature currently integrated with OKX Wallet.
    • Strong collaboration with Sui Foundation and protocols; offline event presence.

Vishwa / Visual BTC (Nathan)

  • Focus: Trustless AI infrastructure for autonomous institutional capital.
  • Core concepts:
    • Graph Networks for verifiable execution; cross-chain, omnichain strategies; deterministic verification.
    • Zero-knowledge verification pipeline to ensure hard-pack proof of execution for institutional strategies.
  • Sui collaboration:
    • R&D-heavy partnership; co-authored research/papers with Mysten Labs (Sui) and other AI teams.
    • Sui’s parallel execution and pipeline design supports redundancy and throughput for institutional-grade strategies (e.g., arbitrage prevention, liquidity shock mitigation).
  • Product/asset:
    • Initial asset set on Sui branded “BCBC” (Visual BTC for institutions).
    • Momentum is the first launch partner; went live 2–3 weeks ago.
    • Near-term pipeline: Another ~$20M of assets targeted in the coming weeks, with plans to double down thereafter.
  • Institutional POV:
    • LLMs are weak at math; institutions need alternative, verifiable quantitative reasoning systems.
    • Preference for principle-preserving yields or bounded-risk “hyper yields” with conservative leverage profiles.

Stacks / SBTC (Kyle)

  • Stacks: An original Bitcoin layer (2015–2019) bringing programmability and smart contracts to Bitcoin; recent upgrades delivered sub-second block times and true Bitcoin L1 finality for Stacks transactions.
  • Mission: Unlock dormant BTC capital for institutions and retail — from “store of value” to productive asset (e.g., Bitcoin-on-Bitcoin yield; entry to cross-chain application ecosystems like Sui).
  • Market context:
    • ~12% of total BTC supply sits in public market vehicles (ETFs, treasuries, DACs, etc.), seeking productivity and shareholder value.
  • Cross-ecosystem approach:
    • Research and education across Move ecosystems; initial aptos partnership and swift expansion into Sui given Sui’s DeFi-first user demand and BTC Fi focus.
    • Infrastructure contributions spanning bridges, custodians, and exchanges to enable BTC mobility and standardized cross-chain use cases.
  • Metrics:
    • ~5,000 BTC minted as SBTC, poised for movement and growth; SBTC is 1:1-pegged to BTC.

The Weekend Liquidation: What Happened and How Protocols Responded

  • Market event: Reported as crypto’s largest liquidation in history.
    • $20B in liquidations (some estimates higher), significantly larger (10x) than FTX’s ~$1.9B liquidation, per references shared at DAS.
    • BTC fell from ~$122k toward ~$100k; many alts down 70–90% intra-spike.
    • Sui dipped from ~$3.40 to ~$0.56 (≈83.5% drawdown). Anecdote: one creator reported a $15M loss on a Sui position.

OKX / XBTC (David)

  • Effect: OKX Exchange remained stable; on the wallet side, no perp DEX exposure, so no direct liquidations via OKX Wallet.
  • Communication: Compliance and security remain top priorities; deeper exchange-side ADL/liquidation specifics TBD pending official data release.

Vishwa / Visual BTC (Nathan)

  • Client outcomes: 0% liquidation for their institutional clientele (miners, custodians, institutional capital) due to conservative risk posture and ZK-verified, hard-pack execution frameworks.
  • Insight: Retail-oriented USD liquidity providers/market makers took the brunt; institutional BTC holders target lower leverage and stable yield profiles.

Stacks / SBTC (Kyle)

  • Observations: Broader market reaction differed vs prior crises; the industry needs stronger application-level, protocol-level, and fund-level protections, especially for retail safeguarding.
  • Operational status: Founders across ecosystem generally managed through the stress; SBTC maintained its 1:1 peg with BTC.

Institutional and Macro Insights (DAS London)

  • Core themes discussed at DAS:
    • PaymentFi and stablecoins as primary narratives.
    • Institutional inflows: from hundreds of millions to billions; structure of institutional DeFi.
    • Public-market exposure (ETFs, treasuries); how to make BTC holdings productive.
    • RWA on-chain migration (notional figures referencing multi-hundred-trillion markets).
    • Evolving regulation/compliance in Europe; US policy (Clarity Act); Asia policy (HK, Korea), and treasury practices (e.g., Japan’s MetaPlanet discussions).
  • Post-event dynamics:
    • Not evidently a single-point failure; appears as extreme market movement across global markets (public, private, digital assets), propagating between time zones.
    • BlackRock reportedly increased BTC purchases for its IBIT spot ETF after the dip — highlighting institutional responsiveness and ongoing accumulation.

BTC Fi Adoption Outlook After the Liquidation

  • David (OKX): Long-term positive for BTC Fi.
    • Spot BTC holders will seek yields and safer participation (e.g., providing liquidity in wrapped BTC pairs).
    • Adoption challenge: DeFi is whale-dominated; retail often prefers short-term trades. Make BTC Fi more retail-friendly.
  • Kyle (Stacks): Institutions awakened to downside protection needs.
    • Treasury managers must avoid single-asset passivity; staking, tokenized/wrapped BTC, and yield strategies can help maintain positions through “black swan” events.
  • Nathan (Vishwa): Volatility trend in BTC spot is moderating compared to past cycles, supporting broader recognition of BTC as a relatively stable crypto blue-chip.
    • Completing the BTC Fi “business loop”: yield generation plus borrowing against BTC collateral (as miners do) sustains a long-term BTC Fi economy.

Mining, Infrastructure, and Macro Headwinds (Nathan)

  • Real-world supply chain factors (electricity, mining rigs, rare earths; trade policy) affect mining infrastructure expansion.
  • Miners reportedly slowing new farm builds modestly, impacting BTC issuance-side dynamics.
  • Perspective: Treat Bitcoin first as an asset class with production economics; strategies and yield layers follow from that foundation.

Anecdotes and Trading Stories

  • David: Personal 100–150x perp leverage experiments were liquidated during the crash; promptly re-entered on the dip and recovered. Notes Asia time-zone disadvantage during US political/news events (e.g., tweets) and the global nature of liquidity feedback loops.
  • Kyle: Emphasizes global market coupling and the need to plan for cross-time-zone shocks.

Asset Ideas Beyond Crypto

  • Nathan: Longer-term focus on emerging markets (Asia, Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa) given demographics and infrastructure-led growth potential.
  • Kyle: Robotics/humanoids value chain — from rare earth materials and supply chains to end-user humanoid products — as a non-crypto area worth researching amidst US–China macro shifts.

Technology and Product Takeaways Under Volatility

  • Nathan:
    • Cryptographic rigor: 1:1 hard-pack proofs; ZK verification; write strategy metadata to Bitcoin L1 and Sui for permissionless traceability of asset provenance and execution endpoints.
    • Practicality > novelty: Technical advances must translate to clear value props for defined users (institutions, retail, builders). Early adopters should be excited, willing to evangelize, and tangibly benefit.
  • Kyle:
    • First principles: Build to real problems and audiences; design applications with evident utility that create sustainable flywheel effects. This discipline is critical for the industry to grow from ~$4T toward $10T+.

Notable Metrics and Highlights

  • BTC Fi on Sui: just over 20% of Sui’s TVL.
  • WBTC on Sui: live since Feb 4; Lombard BTC since Mar 6.
  • XBTC (OKX): ~1,600 minted; >50% on Sui; ~860 XBTC on Sui currently; Sui outpaces Solana and roughly doubles Aptos for XBTC presence.
  • SBTC (Stacks): ~5,000 BTC minted; maintained 1:1 peg during the event.
  • Liquidation scale: ~$20B vs. FTX’s ~$1.9B (context from DAS — speaker references).
  • Sui price move: $3.40 to ~$0.56 at the low (83.5% drawdown), with subsequent recovery.

Announcements and Next Steps

  • Momentum Data NFT drop: “miner-style” reward for WAGNY competition users and crypto Twitter community; eligibility check and friend nominations opening Wednesday.
  • Community engagement: AMA live questions rewarded with exclusive deed NFTs to 5 members.
  • Upcoming: Roundtable AMA with Sui protocols on their responses to the liquidity crisis.
  • Gratitude: Co-host Sui Foundation; guests from OKX/XBTC, Vishwa (Visual BTC), and Stacks.

Pre-session Note

  • Early audio contained unrelated music/lyrics and filler; substantive discussion begins with protocol introductions and the BTC Fi/Sui agenda.