Bitcoin has officially gone mainstream.

The digital asset now sits on the balance sheets of public companies, anchors the fastest-growing exchange-traded funds and has even made its way into strategic government reserves. The most powerful players in finance are treating bitcoin as a serious reserve asset.

Now, a deeper shift is underway. 

Institutions, some of which now hold massive bitcoin positions, are looking to turn idle crypto holdings into working and productive capital. The opportunity cost is too high to ignore. 

Bitcoin’s inherent technical strengths, combined with institutions’ vested interest in its success, position it to evolve into essential infrastructure that powers global markets.

In finance, no asset remains idle for long.

Once an asset makes its way onto institutional balance sheets, the question inevitably becomes: How can it be put to work to earn even more money? 

Cash is lent out to earn interest. Government bonds are pledged and repledged as collateral in trillions of dollars worth of transactions every day. Even gold, which once was hoarded, has evolved into a base for lending and credit markets.

Bitcoin will follow the same trajectory. It’s evolved into a reserve asset held by companies, investment funds and governments. And yet most of it is just sitting there, completely idle. With investors demanding efficiency from every dollar, the pressure to make those holdings productive will only grow. 

Soon, bitcoin too will be used to lend, borrow and settle transactions at scale, generating yield for lenders, and making global settlement more seamless. Institutions, motivated by the opportunity cost of their dormant bitcoin, are already starting to build out their crypto operations and learn to interact with the currency. 

Once institutions start utilizing—not just holding—their bitcoin, they’ll realize that its unique design makes it the perfect foundation for global liquidity. 

The best reserves are those that can be trusted, transferred, and valued consistently across borders and over time. U.S. Treasuries have long served this purpose because they are liquid, backed by the full faith of Uncle Sam, and accepted everywhere as reliable collateral.

Bitcoin brings a different but equally powerful set of attributes. Its supply is fixed, so it can’t be inflated at will. It is global by design, moving seamlessly across jurisdictions without the need for banks or clearinghouses. Every unit can be audited on a public ledger, reducing the opacity that plagues traditional finance. And, unlike sovereign assets, bitcoin carries no risk of default and no exposure to a single government’s fiscal or political decisions.

These very qualities that once made bitcoin a curiosity now make it uniquely suited to serve as a foundation for liquidity in a digital economy. They position it as a candidate to join, and eventually rival, the assets that currently underpin global markets.

Institutions are already planning for this future. Some have borrowed against their bitcoin reserves to raise cash, others are exploring bitcoin as collateral in credit markets, and payments firms are experimenting with instant settlement across borders. Because every reserve can be audited on a public ledger, bitcoin offers a transparency that traditional finance has rarely achieved, a sharp contrast to the hidden leverage that brought down banks in 2008.

The challenge is how to make these early moves durable at scale. 

One promising way to make bitcoin truly productive is through stablecoins. A stablecoin is simply a digital token designed to track the value of a stable asset (usually the U.S. dollar). Most are backed by cash or short-term government debt. 

Bitcoin-backed stablecoins work differently: They use bitcoin as collateral to issue digital dollars directly on-chain.

The advantage is twofold. First, reserves can be verified in real time, removing the opacity that has plagued both traditional banking and earlier crypto experiments. Second, because the collateral is bitcoin rather than cash parked in a bank, these stablecoins aren’t exposed to the same risks of bank failures, regulatory shifts, or hidden leverage. They provide the liquidity institutions need, without sacrificing the transparency and resilience that make bitcoin valuable in the first place.

This model takes different experiments (borrowing against reserves, testing settlement, improving transparency) and scales them into a system that can support global liquidity. If bitcoin-backed stablecoins reach maturity, they will transform billions in idle reserves into working capital, quietly anchoring the flows of credit and trade. 

Bitcoin’s rise has often been told as a story of price charts and speculation. But its real significance lies elsewhere. Bitcoin won’t just be another asset on corporate balance sheets. It will be the foundation on which liquidity is built, the new backbone of the global economy.

Luke Xie is Co-Founder of SatLayer. Luke previously co-founded Press Start Capital and the MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator.

Bitcoin has officially gone mainstream.

The digital asset now sits on the balance sheets of public companies, anchors the fastest-growing exchange-traded funds and has even made its way into strategic government reserves. The most powerful players in finance are treating bitcoin as a serious reserve asset.

Now, a deeper shift is underway. 

Institutions, some of which now hold massive bitcoin positions, are looking to turn idle crypto holdings into working and productive capital. The opportunity cost is too high to ignore. 

Bitcoin’s inherent technical strengths, combined with institutions’ vested interest in its success, position it to evolve into essential infrastructure that powers global markets.

In finance, no asset remains idle for long.

Once an asset makes its way onto institutional balance sheets, the question inevitably becomes: How can it be put to work to earn even more money? 

Cash is lent out to earn interest. Government bonds are pledged and repledged as collateral in trillions of dollars worth of transactions every day. Even gold, which once was hoarded, has evolved into a base for lending and credit markets.

Bitcoin will follow the same trajectory. It’s evolved into a reserve asset held by companies, investment funds and governments. And yet most of it is just sitting there, completely idle. With investors demanding efficiency from every dollar, the pressure to make those holdings productive will only grow. 

Soon, bitcoin too will be used to lend, borrow and settle transactions at scale, generating yield for lenders, and making global settlement more seamless. Institutions, motivated by the opportunity cost of their dormant bitcoin, are already starting to build out their crypto operations and learn to interact with the currency. 

Once institutions start utilizing—not just holding—their bitcoin, they’ll realize that its unique design makes it the perfect foundation for global liquidity. 

The best reserves are those that can be trusted, transferred, and valued consistently across borders and over time. U.S. Treasuries have long served this purpose because they are liquid, backed by the full faith of Uncle Sam, and accepted everywhere as reliable collateral.

Bitcoin brings a different but equally powerful set of attributes. Its supply is fixed, so it can’t be inflated at will. It is global by design, moving seamlessly across jurisdictions without the need for banks or clearinghouses. Every unit can be audited on a public ledger, reducing the opacity that plagues traditional finance. And, unlike sovereign assets, bitcoin carries no risk of default and no exposure to a single government’s fiscal or political decisions.

These very qualities that once made bitcoin a curiosity now make it uniquely suited to serve as a foundation for liquidity in a digital economy. They position it as a candidate to join, and eventually rival, the assets that currently underpin global markets.

Institutions are already planning for this future. Some have borrowed against their bitcoin reserves to raise cash, others are exploring bitcoin as collateral in credit markets, and payments firms are experimenting with instant settlement across borders. Because every reserve can be audited on a public ledger, bitcoin offers a transparency that traditional finance has rarely achieved, a sharp contrast to the hidden leverage that brought down banks in 2008.

The challenge is how to make these early moves durable at scale. 

One promising way to make bitcoin truly productive is through stablecoins. A stablecoin is simply a digital token designed to track the value of a stable asset (usually the U.S. dollar). Most are backed by cash or short-term government debt. 

Bitcoin-backed stablecoins work differently: They use bitcoin as collateral to issue digital dollars directly on-chain.

The advantage is twofold. First, reserves can be verified in real time, removing the opacity that has plagued both traditional banking and earlier crypto experiments. Second, because the collateral is bitcoin rather than cash parked in a bank, these stablecoins aren’t exposed to the same risks of bank failures, regulatory shifts, or hidden leverage. They provide the liquidity institutions need, without sacrificing the transparency and resilience that make bitcoin valuable in the first place.

This model takes different experiments (borrowing against reserves, testing settlement, improving transparency) and scales them into a system that can support global liquidity. If bitcoin-backed stablecoins reach maturity, they will transform billions in idle reserves into working capital, quietly anchoring the flows of credit and trade. 

Bitcoin’s rise has often been told as a story of price charts and speculation. But its real significance lies elsewhere. Bitcoin won’t just be another asset on corporate balance sheets. It will be the foundation on which liquidity is built, the new backbone of the global economy.

Luke Xie is Co-Founder of SatLayer. Luke previously co-founded Press Start Capital and the MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator.