Stacks’ Institutional-Grade Primitives That Unlock Bitcoin’s Economy

For most of Bitcoin’s history, institutional adoption followed one path: buy, custody, hold.

In 2025, this expanded as corporations added Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Asset managers launched regulated products. Governments discussed strategic reserves. Bitcoin crossed the institutional legitimacy threshold.

Yet most of that capital still remains idle.

Not because institutions lack conviction, but because Bitcoin historically lacked the operational requirements institutions need to deploy capital responsibly. As outlined in our recent piece on Stacks' infrastructure readiness, deployable capital depends on regulated access, enterprise-grade execution, custody, and independent validation. These are the primitives that investment committees require before capital can move.

Stacks brings institutional-grade primitives that turn Bitcoin from a passive balance sheet holding into deployable capital. These are not the same retail DeFi tools with institutional branding layered on. They are purpose-built integrations that align with how institutions already invest, custody assets, manage risk, and pass diligence.

Here’s a glimpse into what’s live on Stacks today.

Regulated Market Access with 21Shares

21Shares, the world’s first and largest ETP issuer, provides regulated investment products that give institutions exposure to the Stacks ecosystem through existing securities frameworks. These products allow institutions to gain Stacks exposure without directly interacting with wallets, smart contracts, or onchain infrastructure.

As a result, Stacks exposure can flow through regulated brokerage, custody, and reporting systems already approved by institutional compliance teams. To address the challenge of earning regulated Bitcoin-native yield, 21Shares’ Staking ATP for Stacks captures and reinvests staking rewards directly into the ETP, enhancing performance within a compliant structure.

Stacks offers the first integrated solution for building decentralized applications and deploying smart contracts secured directly by Bitcoin, transforming Bitcoin into a versatile base layer similar to Ethereum but with unmatched security and decentralization. - 21Shares ASTX Investment Thesis

Benchmark Exposure via Grayscale

Institutions require standardized reference points. Grayscale, known for being the first to launch a Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) for institutions, is the largest digital-asset focused investment platform globally. Grayscale provides trust-based products that give institutions standardized exposure with established reporting and disclosures. 

Grayscale’s Stacks Trust (Ticker: STCK) trading publicly on the OTCQB® market makes Stacks exposure comparable to other digital-asset investments already used in institutional portfolios.

Among investable tokens, STX could benefit from the Bitcoin renaissance. Among Bitcoin scaling solutions, Stacks is the oldest project and has the second highest number of active developers, after the Lightning Network. - Michael Zhao, Grayscale Researcher

Secure Execution with Fordefi

Most institutions cannot interact directly with smart contracts due to operational risk constraints.

Fordefi, a SOC 2 Type II compliant execution platform audited by Ernst & Young, enables institutions to interact with Stacks-based protocols without managing private keys or executing transactions from internal systems. Capital deployment occurs through controlled, auditable environments aligned with institutional risk and approval processes.

Through its MPC wallet, institutions can deploy Bitcoin into sBTC-based protocols on Stacks while maintaining institutional execution standards.

At Fordefi, we're excited to continue making Bitcoin DeFi safe and accessible for institutions. Our commitment to sBTC represents a key step in supporting the growth of institutional adoption within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Together, we’re providing secure, scalable solutions that empower institutional investors to engage with the rapidly evolving Bitcoin DeFi space and unlock its full potential. - Josh Schwartz, CEO and Co-founder at Fordefi

Enterprise Staking via Figment

Figment operates institutional-grade staking infrastructure on Stacks. Its leading portfolio of over $15 billion in assets from global institutions can now participate in earning network level yield without running validator infrastructure or maintaining internal operational teams.

Figment supports the Bitcoin economy through its enterprise-grade stacking solution for Stacks, giving institutions access to secure Bitcoin yield. sBTC has the potential to become a foundational layer of the Bitcoin economy currently being built on Stacks. We are proud to support the Stacks ecosystem and its institutional token holders as an sBTC Signer and Stacking Node Operator on the protocol. – Clayton Menzel, Director of Protocol Strategy at Figment

Always On Operations from Blockdaemon

Blockdaemon, a leading institutional staking provider securing over $110 billion in assets for 400+ institutions, provides managed node infrastructure for the Stacks network. Its services include high-availability operations, monitoring, and redundancy designed to meet institutional reliability standards.

Blockdaemon also offers private, white-label Stacks validators for institutions seeking customized infrastructure to earn Bitcoin yield on the leading Bitcoin Layer 2.

Blockdaemon is proud to be named as one of Stacks Foundation’s newest Signers. Together, we aim to drive innovation within the Bitcoin L2 category, by leveraging our strong infrastructure as well as the years of experience we have in the space.  - Gaetan Thabot, Head of Protocol and Foundation Partnerships at Blockdaemon

Independent Validation by Asymmetric Research

Asymmetric Research provides independent security and protocol analysis of Stacks and its core mechanisms. Its research is used by institutions to support internal diligence, risk assessment, and investment decision-making.

Stacks is one of nine grade-A ecosystems currently covered by Asymmetric Research, contributing to institutional requirements for third-party validation.

Asymmetric Research is proud to participate in the Stacks ecosystem as it pioneers trust-minimized, decentralized assets like sBTC. - Jonathan Claudius, Chief Executive Officer at Asymmetric Research

Enterprise Custody with Copper 

Copper.co provides MPC-based custody and collateral management services aligned with institutional operational workflows, including secure asset storage, collateral movement, and settlement support. Recognized multiple times by HFM as the Best Digital Asset Custodian, Copper enables institutions to hold and deploy assets on Stacks while maintaining internal controls and segregation of duties.

Our integration of Stacks not only empowers institutional clients to safely custody and trade a variety of tokens on the Stacks blockchain but also enables Stacking, which has been met with immediate enthusiasm. - Dmitry Tokarev, CEO at Copper.co

Why This Matters

Institutional capital doesn’t move on conviction alone. It moves when infrastructure is ready. While Bitcoin is widely accepted as a store of value, most capital remains idle due to regulatory, operational, and execution constraints.

Stacks is already solving these constraints. Regulated access, standardized investment products, secure execution, enterprise staking, independent research, and institutional custody are live today, enabling institutions to deploy Bitcoin capital in compliant, auditable ways. This shifts Bitcoin from a passive balance-sheet asset into productive capital, without compromising the security assumptions that underpin Bitcoin itself.