TL;DR
ING structured its Bitcoin operations through products managed by Bitwise, a digital asset manager with a regulated structure and an established track record. The bank accesses custody services and crypto-related strategies through third-party managed vehicles, without holding BTC on its balance sheet or operating its own infrastructure.
Bitwise handles asset custody, technical execution, and product administration. ING participates as a financial institution that distributes and uses these vehicles within existing regulatory frameworks. This structure allows the bank to operate with digital assets under processes compatible with audits, internal controls, and financial supervision.
In addition, the bank avoids managing private keys, nodes, or onchain transaction flows. All of these functions are concentrated in a specialized provider. This setup allows ING to use Bitcoin within formal financial structures without intervening directly in the network’s technical layer.
The entry of institutional capital under this model highlights several operational limitations of BTC Layer 1. The base network lacks native smart contracts and has confirmation times that are incompatible with high-frequency trading, settlement, and position management. These constraints shift part of the activity toward solutions that execute transactions off the main layer and settle the final result on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) stands out within this segment as a Layer 2 solution designed to separate execution from settlement. The protocol processes transactions in an external environment and records the final state on L1. The execution layer uses the Solana Virtual Machine, while BTC retains the settlement role.
Its design enables low-latency operations at reduced costs without altering the base network’s rules. The architecture supports high-performance applications such as intensive trading platforms, onchain games, and DeFi protocols with complex logic. Protocol development is based on Rust, a language commonly used in performance-oriented systems.
Bitcoin Hyper includes a decentralized canonical bridge that enables trustless transfers between BTC and the execution layer. The system manages asset movements within the protocol itself and avoids reliance on external bridges.
HYPER reported raising $31.2 million during its presale phase. The $HYPER token reached a price of $0.013675 at that stage. Staking will be enabled after the token generation event, with a seven-day vesting period for presale participants. The project’s roadmap includes the mainnet launch and full activation of SVM-based execution capabilities
