NAVI Protocol

NAVI Protocol is the leading decentralized liquidity platform built natively on the Sui blockchain. Developed using the Move programming language, it operates as a one-stop financial hub where users can lend and borrow digital assets, stake for yield, and trade within a single unified ecosystem. The name “NAVI” comes from an ancient Indian language meaning “be kind to people,” and that ethos shapes its core mission: making decentralized finance accessible, secure, and practical for everyday users.

At its foundation, NAVI Protocol runs on shared liquidity pools. Lenders deposit assets to earn yield. Borrowers post collateral and draw against it to access capital without selling their holdings. The system removes intermediaries entirely, meaning no banks, no credit checks, and no gatekeepers. Think of it as a permissionless money market that runs around the clock without a centralized operator holding the keys.

The protocol’s use cases span several product verticals. NAVI Lending is the core platform, supporting over 20 liquidity pools across assets like SUI, Wrapped Bitcoin, Wrapped Ethereum, USDC, USDT, and yield-bearing tokens. Volo, which NAVI acquired in January 2024, handles liquid staking, letting users stake SUI and continue using the derivative token across DeFi. Astros, NAVI’s decentralized exchange product, provides cross-chain swaps and perpetual trading. Together, these products create a full-stack DeFi environment comparable to what a user would expect from an integrated financial platform, but entirely on-chain.

NAVI also offers Automatic Leverage Vaults and Isolation Mode, two risk management features worth understanding. Isolation Mode limits certain higher-risk assets to isolated pools, so a problem with one asset does not cascade across the entire protocol. Automatic Leverage Vaults let users compound yield strategies with built-in position management. The protocol uses multi-oracle pricing, drawing price feeds from Supra and Pyth simultaneously, to reduce the risk of price manipulation affecting liquidations.

NAVI launched its mainnet on the Sui blockchain in mid-2023. The protocol chose Sui deliberately. Sui’s object-based architecture, rather than the account-based model used on Ethereum, provides stronger resistance to exploits like reentrancy attacks and double-spending. Transactions on Sui finalize in under a second. This combination of speed and security made it the right foundation for a high-frequency lending platform. By the end of Q4 2023, NAVI had grown to a $50 million total market size, ranking it as the top protocol in the Sui DeFi ecosystem at the time.

Growth accelerated sharply through 2024. TVL stood at $60 million at the start of January 2024 and surpassed $200 million by the end of Q1 2024, more than tripling in under three months. By Q3 2024, the protocol recorded a 122% increase in TVL quarter over quarter, cementing its position as the largest DeFi protocol on Sui by total value locked. Peak TVL crossed $750 million in Q4 2024 and reached $1 billion by the close of 2025. The protocol also passed 1 million unique users by the end of 2025, a milestone that places it among the most widely used DeFi protocols on any emerging Layer 1 blockchain.

In January 2024, NAVI closed a $2 million seed funding round co-led by OKX Ventures, Hashed, and DAO5. The investor list for that round reads like a who’s who of credible crypto capital. Participants included Mysten Labs (the team behind the Sui blockchain itself), Mechanism Capital, Coin98 Ventures, Cetus Protocol, Comma3 Ventures, GeekCartel Capital, Nomad Capital, Maverick, ViaBTC Capital, Assembly Partners, Gate.io Labs, Hailstone Labs, Benqi Finance, and LBank Labs. Mysten Labs’ participation in particular signals a deep alignment between NAVI and the broader Sui ecosystem strategy, given that Mysten Labs is both the creator of Sui and a financial backer of its leading DeFi protocol.

NAVX is the native utility and governance token of NAVI Protocol. The total supply is capped at 1 billion tokens. NAVX launched in February 2024 through initial DEX offerings on platforms including Cetus DEX and Gate.io, with only 1.2% of supply sold publicly at launch. The remainder is allocated to community incentives, the team, and investors under vesting schedules designed to prevent market flooding.

NAVX serves several functions within the protocol. Holders can vote on governance proposals, including decisions about interest rate parameters, new asset listings, and protocol upgrades. Users who stake NAVX earn a share of protocol fees and emissions. Providing liquidity in NAVX pairs generates additional rewards and fee sharing. NAVX also feeds into the NAVI X Ecosystem Fund, which committed 10 million NAVX tokens to support innovation and growth across the Sui DeFi ecosystem. Bybit listed NAVX for spot trading starting October 2024, and the token is available on several other centralized exchanges as well.

NAVX tokens are accessible on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges for standard spot trading. However, to buy or sell large token amounts, access locked tokens, or trade SAFT notes, a centralized exchange is not the right venue. Acquire.Fi’s OTC and Secondaries Marketplace is built specifically for that kind of transaction.

If you want to buy NAVI Protocol tokens OTC, you can engage with existing listings on the Acquire.Fi marketplace or submit a new Buy listing specifying your preferred valuation and token amount. If you want to sell NAVI Protocol tokens OTC and exit an existing position, you can engage with active buy-side listings or submit a new Sell listing with your target terms.

Once a listing is submitted, Acquire.Fi handles the process from there. The team conducts background checks on counterparties, sends NDAs, and then introduces buyer and seller. Both parties are responsible for their own due diligence and payment settlement. Acquire.Fi is not a broker-dealer, but the team actively assists throughout to help ensure the deal closes. For anyone holding significant NAVX positions or looking to acquire a meaningful stake outside the spot market, this is the most practical route available.