Crypto trading and market-making firm GSR is committing $100 million to Hare, a new onchain credit business designed to create and manage vaults for institutional investors. The multi-year commitment will primarily take the form of a credit facility, with GSR's capital serving as anchor liquidity in Hare's products before outside investors participate.
Hare is being built alongside liquidity distribution platform Turtle and will initially offer two products powered by lending protocol Aave. Hare USD Earn will accept major dollar stablecoins, while Hare Gold Earn will allow holders of Paxos' tokenized gold products PAXG and PAXGy to earn yield. Paxos Labs is partnering on the gold product.
Onchain vaults function by allowing investors to deposit assets into a smart contract, where a manager decides how to deploy that capital across lending markets and yield-generating strategies. This model turns idle assets into sources of collateral or yield. As of July, there were $8.6 billion in assets across 788 curated vaults serving 1.4 million investors, according to Vaults.fyi data.
GSR's move reflects growing institutional demand for vault infrastructure as tokenization spreads through traditional finance. More funds, commodities, and other assets are moving onto blockchain networks, creating demand for infrastructure that can deploy those assets rather than simply hold or trade them.
Other institutional firms are entering the space. Crypto lender Two Prime recently introduced a bitcoin lending vault built on Pareto with $10 million of backing, while Galaxy Digital rolled out Galaxy Curator, a Morpho-based vault platform providing Fireblocks' 2,400 institutional clients access to onchain yield strategies.
Hare CEO Connor Milner said the company will focus on assessing collateral, counterparties, and how positions might behave during market stress. Milner previously served as senior director at London-based DeFi hedge fund Re7 Capital.
