For the first time in Hive's history, since the launch of the chain 10 years ago there is a protocol-level mechanism that creates new, mechanical demand for Hive assets from outside the Hive ecosystem. Not speculation. Not marketing. Structural demand baked into how crosschain swaps work.
This is the model Hive has been missing. A mechanical flywheel where external users, Bitcoin holders, DASH users, eventually ETH and other participants generate value for the Hive ecosystem every time they swap. THORChain proved this model works, RUNE's value proposition is almost entirely derived from being the settlement asset in every crosschain pool.
Magi brings that same architecture to Hive, except the settlement asset is HBD, a decentralized, non-KYC stablecoin, not a volatile token.
What's Launching
BTC-HBD liquidity pools are live on Magi Network (formerly VSC Network), accessible through Altera, Magi's flagship DeFi application:
- Swap native BTC for HBD, HIVE, and other supported assets
- Provide liquidity to BTC-HBD, HIVE-HBD pools and earn swap fees
- Deposit BTC from any Bitcoin wallet directly into Magi's crosschain liquidity network
- Withdraw real BTC back to any Bitcoin address at any time
Not wrapped Bitcoin. Real, native Bitcoin sitting on the Bitcoin mainnet, swappable through decentralized pools built on Hive's Layer 2.
Every pool requires HBD as a base asset in the trading pair. Every multi-hop swap routes through HBD by default. This means that as crosschain volume grows — BTC to DASH, BTC to HIVE, eventually dozens of asset pairs - demand for HBD scales proportionally. And because HBD is backed by HIVE, through Hive's conversion mechanism, that demand flows directly into the HIVE economy.
Fee Model
Pools use a Constant Liquidity Product (CLP) model. (AMM)
The fee has two components:
- Base fee: 8 basis points (0.08%) by default, configurable per pool
- Slip fee: Scales with swap size relative to pool depth using the formula
(input² × reserveOut) / (input + reserveIn)²
This means small swaps pay minimal fees while large swaps relative to pool depth pay progressively more, a natural protection against pool drain and an incentive for deep liquidity.
No gas fees as transactions within Magi are feeless, inheriting Hive's resource credit model.
How It Works Under the Hood
Building crosschain liquidity for native BTC is one of the hardest problems in crypto. Bitcoin doesn't have smart contracts, you can't write an escrow that releases funds when conditions are met on another chain. So how do you custody real BTC without a centralized entity holding the keys?
Magi solves this with:
1. Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS). A group of independent validators collectively control a Bitcoin address, but no single validator ever holds the full private key. To move funds, two-thirds of them must cooperatively produce a valid signature through a multi-round cryptographic protocol. The Bitcoin network sees this as a completely normal transaction, there's no on-chain footprint indicating distributed control.
2. Bitcoin SPV Relay. Rather than trusting oracles, Magi runs a full Bitcoin light client on-chain storing block headers, validating proof-of-work, and enforcing Bitcoin's difficulty retarget rules. When you deposit BTC, your transaction is verified against these headers using Merkle proofs. Trustless verification, no external trust assumptions.
3. Hive Gateway. For HIVE and HBD operations, a separate multisig gateway rotates its signing authorities hourly to match the current validator set, and auto-rebalances between liquid and savings HBD to earn yield on idle protocol funds.
The entire flow, deposit, verify, swap, withdraw operates without any centralized custody, any wrapped token intermediary, or any external trust assumption beyond the validator set and Bitcoin's own proof-of-work.
History In The Making On Hive!
Only Three Other Protocols Have Achieved This.
In the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem, out of thousands of protocols, only three other protocols have successfully shipped TSS-based custody for native Bitcoin in production crosschain swaps where real BTC is held and transferred without any wrapped token at any stage:
| Protocol | TSS Algorithm | Architecture |
|---|---|---|
| THORChain | GG20 threshold ECDSA | Cosmos SDK, RUNE as settlement asset, Asgard vaults with ~20-node shards |
| Chainflip | FROST (Schnorr/Taproot) | Substrate-based, 100-of-150 validator threshold, Taproot vault addresses |
| Maya Protocol | GG20 threshold ECDSA | THORChain fork, CACAO as settlement asset, independent validator set |
Other protocols use TSS to custody BTC but mint wrapped tokens as the output, the user receives a derivative, not the native asset.
The reason so few protocols ship native BTC swaps via TSS is because it requires building a full distributed signing infrastructure with real-time multi-round coordination, dealer-less key generation, key rotation without fund migration, UTXO tracking, Bitcoin Script construction, SPV verification, and fault-tolerant signing ceremonies all operating under adversarial network conditions. Most teams assess the complexity and ship wrapped tokens instead. It is orders of magnitude simpler to lock BTC with a custodian and mint an ERC-20.
Where there were only 3, now there are 4.
Magi is now the fourth protocol to solve this problem. And it is the only one built on Hive.
What This Means for Hive - The Bigger Picture
Mechanical demand for HBD. This is not speculative. The DEX router's multi-hop architecture uses HBD as the default intermediate asset. When someone swaps BTC to DASH (once DASH pools are live), that swap routes BTC → HBD → DASH. Both legs generate fees. Both legs require HBD liquidity. As more chains are added, Litecoin mapping already exist, @dashpay integration is announced and under way, the number of pairs routing through HBD multiplies. Every new chain makes existing HBD liquidity more valuable.
Real yield from real volume. Liquidity providers earn slip-based fees and base 8bps fee, that auto-compound into pool reserves. This is not inflationary emission. Not yield farming subsidized by token printing. It's actual revenue from actual crosschain swap volume.
Bitcoin users interact with Hive whether they know it or not. Someone swapping BTC for DASH is settling on Magi. Their swap fees accrue to HBD pools.
DASH is next. Then more. The UTXO mapping architecture is chain-agnostic. The same contract pattern that handles BTC has already been replicated for Litecoin. DASH-HBD pools are planned and close to being done. Every new chain deepens the liquidity network, increases HBD routing demand, and makes Magi more useful, compounding the network effect.
Eliminating Hive CEX Dependence
Fiat → BTC (on-ramp) → BTC-HBD pool → HIVE WALLET
Moving Hive in and out of the ecosystem without a centralized exchange
HIVE WALLET → BTC-HBD pool → BTC → Fiat (off-ramp)
All with a few clicks. Fiat on-ramp, off-ramp is our next addition to Altera.
A user anywhere in the world can go from their bank account to HIVE and back through nothing but decentralized liquidity pools and a fiat-to-BTC gateway. The entire flow up to the off-ramp/on-ramp is non-custodial, permissionless, and KYC-free at the protocol level.
The fear of exchange delistings has hung over the Hive ecosystem for years. Every time an exchange reviews its listings, every time trading volume dips below some internal threshold, the community holds its breath. That dynamic exists because Hive's liquidity, the ability for people to buy and sell HIVE has been almost entirely dependent on centralized exchanges deciding to support it. If they delist, liquidity disappears.
Magi eliminates that fear. Not by convincing exchanges to keep HIVE listed but by making their listings irrelevant to Hive's core liquidity infrastructure.
The great thing is that this is not only specific to Hive. Magi provides this same safety to any other protocol it integrates with.
The protocol doesn't care about listing requirements, trading volume thresholds, or compliance reviews. It's infrastructure. It runs because validators run it.
The network effect compounds: every new chain Magi integrates is another on-ramp path. BTC today. DASH soon. Eventually ETH, USDC and others. The more chains Magi supports, the more paths exist to reach HIVE, and the harder it becomes for any single point of failure to cut off access.
This is what independence looks like for a blockchain. NOT ISOLATION - CONNECTION. Hive becomes self-sufficient not because it doesn't need liquidity, but because it generates its own through protocol infrastructure that no one controls, no one can delist, and no one can shut down. Hive's future stops depending on the business decisions of centralized exchanges and starts depending on the choices of the Hive community itself.
Congrats on the launch :mrtats/partyparrot::mrtats/hive_rocket:
I have added 100$ liquidity to :btc:/:hbd: pool
LFG! ❤️
~~~ embed:hivenetwork/comments/1soq71m/native_bitcoin_liquidity_pools_have_been_launched/ reddit metadata:fGhpdmVuZXR3b3JrfGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnJlZGRpdC5jb20vci9oaXZlbmV0d29yay9jb21tZW50cy8xc29xNzFtL25hdGl2ZV9iaXRjb2luX2xpcXVpZGl0eV9wb29sc19oYXZlX2JlZW5fbGF1bmNoZWQvfA== ~~~
This post has been shared on Reddit by @wissenskrieger, @x-rain through the HivePosh initiative.
I will certainly have to follow this. That is freakin genius. Well done. I get the general vision and it sounds like massive news, I will dive into this further so I can understand more but feels like a massive opportunity to me. Awesome 😃
Your reply is upvoted by @topcomment; a manual curation service that rewards meaningful and engaging comments.
I love tracking onchain stats. Would be fun building new scripts tracking activity of altera and making price predictions or simply calculating averages.
Hive-engine is fun but u know ........
I don't wanna hit walls of 1000 limit or block limit or nodes not returning data....
Also, even if not, having more data and stats makes things more fun for me.
Anyways thanks for making my day! ☺️
😎
I figured the above issue too xD
They had different endpoints instead of using swaggers
This is probably the greatest achievement we have had on Hive for a long time, Well done! It is also coming at the exact time we need it with CEXs requiring KYC and Hive needing a new feature/usecase to revive sentiment. Can't wait to see how this grows :)
@dashpay, Ethereum and USDC are coming next.
Agree.
I’ve been waiting for this since 11/11/2025—it’s so exciting that we finally have it. It has a lot of potential to take us to the moon.
How dependent is the system on Altera? Can the Magi team lock wallets? If the team abandons the project, will the funds be lost? It’s not clear to me how decentralized it is, regardless of the fact that it’s built on Hive. For example, in a hypothetical apocalyptic scenario where the Magi team decides to leave, shuts down the Altera website, and halts all development and maintenance, are users’ tokens safe (SAFU)? What is the risk of using Altera?
To earn by providing liquidity, can I use just HBD, or do I have to provide both (HBD-BTC)?
We were really excited to release this as well.
To answer your questions, Altera is the frontend, think of it like Peakd here. Anyone can spin up their own frontend from the Altera code and run it themselves. Its open source.
Right now I am working on an SDK which would allow you to do the crosschain swaps from the Peakd wallet, Ecency, Keychain... if they integrate it ofc, so in that way youre not overly dependant on Altera. You can use it for the full experience and expanded functionality.
The Magi team cannot lock wallets or move funds from user wallets. The infra is precisely designed to avoid that. Thats why almost nobody else has this tech in the entire crypto ecosystem.
Extremely complex to do but what it does is make sure no single party controls the keys and theres no single point of failure.
Do you mean in the catastrophic event of losing DHF funding? 😅
It would be very hard for Magi to survive if that happens in such early stage before we start generating revenue.
But even then the user funds would be safe. You can yourself run a validator/witness right now to secure the system and produce blocks. So in that way its not dependent on us.
What is dependent on us is development ofc and decision making on what direction to go in, what next project to integrate with. We do not yet have a governance layer to further decentralize Magi on the decision making side. Thats something we are looking at for the mid term.
That's amazing—thanks for the reply; it really puts my mind at ease. I've had some negative experiences, like Leofinance's CUB project.
I wasn't referring to DHF specifically, but it's good to know. I supported the first proposal, but not the second one because I thought it would take too long. Now that it’s a reality, I’ll support the next ones. I hope you have some kind of marketing strategy so that people outside of Hive can learn about Magi.🚀
Leofinance was basically a DEFI yield play with their own token.
What we are building is a liquidity layer and a CEX competitor. It completely removes CEX dependency for any blockchain we integrate with, firstly for Hive and pushes all trades through HBD as HBD is the base asset in all trading pairs. That creates a huge demand for HBD over time.
We have a very clear GTM strategy and you can probably see already what it is. The beautiful thing is that only 4 other protocols out of 20 thousand of them can offer what we can.
We already spent over $800k on this, and this "revenue" is Hive users paying much more in fees than just using something like Swapspace.
SwapSpace is an aggregator, Magi is a liqudity layer. Those two things have nothing in common. Secondly, youre using a centralized service and currently the top option for a Hive-BTC swap via SwapSpace is Changely that charges a minimum of 0.25% service fee. A Hive-BTC swap via our pools is 0.16% for multihop plus tiny CLP fee so its under 0.2%.
Its cheaper then the cheapest option.
Altera has a service fee of 0.25% on top of that on selling Hive and 0% on all buys of Hive and HBD. So anyone buying Hive, in a non-KYC, trustless manner they pay the least of any swap option that exists.
Ofc, frontends will charge their own fees as will aggregators but you can use the SDK and widget yourself that we will post today and not charge anything.
Thanks for all your great explanations @lordbutterfly. I didn't fully understand the scope of what has been achieved here.
Now I do, I'm super impressed.
❤️
If you swap HBD for BTC its only 0.08%.
that's a lot lower than the fees I'm hearing quoted, specifically for the BTC:HBD pool with $43.10 in fees earned with $1,703.34 volume, which comes out to around 2.5%. I honestly haven't been paying attention, but it has come up a few times.
Thats because the team tested the BTC pool with a higher % of the pool reserve to test the CLP fee. That was a few early Txs.
CLP fee is derived from swap size vs pool reserve.
The actual Fees are this:
0.08% + CLP + 0.25% service fee for HBD->BTC
0.16% + CLP + 0.25% service fee for HIVE->HBD->BTC
0.08% + CLP + 0% service fee for BTC->HBD
0.16% + CLP + 0% service fee for BTC->HBD->HIVE
Inleo for example charges 0.4% and Thorswap 0.5% on top of the protocol fees. So Altera plus our pools are cheaper than aynthing else.
I'll pass that on.
Pretty nice, liking this so far! One UI request is that I should be able to swap these 2 with a button in the middle(so go from BTC to Hive). I know it's easy, but too used to that from other pools.
Yes. Theres a reason thats not possible yet. I dont want to bore you with specifics but we will add that for sure. 😅
Happy Happy Joy Joy :)
News that points to a bright future 😎
Well done
!PIMP
!CENT
!PEPE
Wow that's great now for our hive ecosystem
Best of luck
I'm reading and researching, and so far I'm beginning to grasp the magnitude of it all; it's fantastic. I'll keep investigating.
via Apps from
----
via Apps from
Oh cool. I don't have enough HBD anymore tho. Wow how exciting to have this new crosschain thing. ♥️ Wouldn't have known if not for that wallet msg. 😅
We are happy you noticed. :)
Can we please have a Hive:Bitcoin swap pool?
I’m not saying that benefits the whole, but that is something I would be enticed to use!
Just an idea though, not saying you should 😃
HBD is the base asset for all trading pairs for the time being. But you can easily do a BTC->HIVE swap or a HIVE->BTC swap, its all routed through HBD.
When 1 base asset is used in all trading pairs like this that significantly increases liquidity efficiency as its spread across much fewer pools.
For a 100 different coins pairing them with each other like Hive/BTC, you would need 5000 pools.
If you use a base asset for a 100 coins only 100 pools are needed, liquidity isn't spread thin and the base asset (HBD) becomes the liquidity backbone.
Use V4V
Instant swap via lighting.
https://v4v.app/pos/currency
Instant swap in either direction, it’s been around for years already.
Hi, how are you? Hive did a great pump a few days ago... It performed better than having HP and voting.
How are you doing after your hive break? I hope you're well.
Hey man! I am doing a lot better.
Yea! I saw that pump. Nice to see Hive is still getting those from time to time.
The Hive break has been really great for me personally. I am much more relaxed now, getting better sleep, eating better, exercising more, and drinking way less. It has been an objectively positive experience to take a step back and relax.
How have you been doing? I hope you have been well too!
Let's hope we can actually get some traction outside Hive! That's something we've kinda been struggling with :)
Anyway, that rather poor exchange rate is down to low liquidity, right?
Yes, thats just how AMMs work. With higher liquidity and arbitrageurs looking for opportunities it will balance itself out.
Neat! :)
Congratulations! That'sa HUGE achievement. Making Bitcoin and other chains interact with the Hive is the best thing that can happen to the Hive community.
Agreed!
oh, I also just noticed the ALT-ERA word game - welcome to the Alt era!
😇
I am very excited about this ...
This looks like it can be huge, if the community supports it.
The majority trade their Hive on centralized exchanges, and old habits die hard.
But I hope you are successful and I will support the project with upvotes, reblogging and creating content about it. Please feel free to give me feedback on my content about this project.
Hey @magi.network team! 👋 I host a podcast about values, habits, and leadership. My guests range from athletes and artists to politicians and innovators. What they all have in common is a story worth telling.
I came across your content Magi recently and I'll be honest, a lot of it goes over my head! But that's exactly why I would love to invite you to join me for a conversation. I consider myself a newcomer to the crypto and blockchain world, and so are many of my listeners. I'd love to sit down with someone from your team and explore the human story behind the project. What drove you to build this? What keeps you going? How do you think about leadership and purpose in a space most people find intimidating? Maybe some onboarding tips as well?
I think there's real value in having someone explain what you're doing to someone who genuinely doesn't speak the language yet. I suspect a lot of people like me are curious but just don't know where to start.
Would you be open to that kind of conversation? Happy to go at whatever pace works for you.
Looking forward to hearing from you! 🎙️
!HBIT
!POB
!DIY
acgalarza, you mined 0.9 🟧 HBIT and the user you replied to (magi.network) received 0.1 HBIT on your behalf as a tip. You can receive 100% of the HBIT by replying to one of your own posts or comments. When you mine HBIT, you're also playing the Wusang: Isle of Blaq game. 🏴☠️ | tools | wallet | discord | community | daily <><
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There is a treasure chest of bitcoin sats hidden in Wusang: Isle of Blaq. Happy treasure hunting! 😃 Read about Hivebits (HBIT) or read the story of Wusang: Isle of Blaq.
Thank you for the invite. Please if you can share a link to some of your content so we see if its a good fit.
Of course! In my channel you'll find Spanish, German and English interview.
👇 👇 👇 👇
https://www.youtube.com/@charladevida/videos
A couple of months ago I interview the amazing @crimsonclad
I've also interview @starkerz and had a great talk
Very interesting. What is the APR for providing liquidity in the pools?
Its an AMM. There is no fixed APR. More volume, more fees. More fees, more HBD demand. More HBD demand, more Hive demand (conversions). More integrations, more tokens, more liquidity, more HBD bought to put in pools, more embedding of our widget the more users, more aggregators, more volume.
I cant tell you what the APR will be but we havent been live for even 1 day and we did 50% of 24h Hive internal market volume on the Hive/HBD pair on day 1 with 3k in liquidity.
I see. But from where the outside volumen could come? Who knows about this?
We already have a partnership with Dash, a few other chains inquiring about integrations, as well as aggregators. The competition is very low as only 3 other protocols out of tens of thousands have this tech that allows for trustless, non kyc, non custodial crosschain swaps. And theres, who even knows how many crypto projects to serve.
The volume comes from those projects we partner with and integrate, as does liquidity.
Will the HBD staking Apr be the same as the Hive main-net Apr?
15% for staking is indicated, this is 1% more than in the main network - is it really 15%?
It is not. That is a UI bug, its 12%, our value there was hardcoded, we will switch it to dynamic APR.
That's awesome! Can't wait to see more assets being added.
Many more have been prepared already and we will release them on a schedule.
interesting that everything turns out well
"demand for HBD scales proportionally. And because HBD is backed by HIVE, through Hive's conversion mechanism, that demand flows directly into the HIVE economy."let's hope it happens.
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STOPThis is fantastic work, contribution to the Community noted #legend
!PIZZA !HBIT
urielkinnear, you mined 0.9 🟧 HBIT and the user you replied to (magi.network) received 0.1 HBIT on your behalf as a tip. When you mine HBIT, you're also playing the Wusang: Isle of Blaq game. 🏴☠️
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I definitely will check this out.
!BBH
Wow, this super interesting and worth knowing more to get a better understanding. Keep the good fight up.
!ALIVE
!PIZZA
HBD’s flywheel starts now. ( any video out how to use it with step to step?)
Start with Altera, we will add more user facing tutorials.
All you need to do is connect your Hive wallet to Altera and try out a few HBD/HIVE or HBD/BTC swaps.
Thanks!
When I want to swap, it says the market rate of Hive is
whereas on Coingecko it is 0,0000008233 which is quite higher. Can you have a look into it?
That is a natural state of AMMs, the price follows pool ratios, as the liquidity deepens the less it will deviate from market prices. This also opens opportunities for arbitrage. If one side is underpriced you can buy it, balance the pool and make profit selling it elsewhere. That is all by design.
So why would one use the swaps if the rate is worse? I won´t use pools as there is an additional risk of impermanent loss, especially with such small volumes. I am also not an arbitrage trader, just want to swap.
That will balance out, ofc as I said with arbitrage and pool depth.
I did a cross-swap of $5 HBD to BTC to my bitcoin wallet but the $5 BTC never arrived to my wallet?? @magi.network https://vsc.techcoderx.com/tx/94ce83d86c1da89fb70d9f60b31970eb623972ab
We are looking into it, we seemed to have found the issue.
Sounds good!
We found the issue, it seems only your tx didnt complete, fixing it right now, you should receive your funds soon.
@magi.network I still haven't received them. You can see my wallet here, which just shows 1 transaction I made before the magi cross chain swap: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/bc1q3tet9kazk8v59ptfqr6f0945fvj7g4xwnlyzy8
We are dealing with the issue, once its live on mainnet, we will ping you here.
great thanks!
You posted this a few hours ago, but I'm curious to know if the $5BTC ever arrived. 😥
Not yet. Hopefully it arrives soon as Magi is working on the bug fix.
Lit StuFF!!!!