OKX Ventures-backed Haedal Protocol rallies 50% ahead of Bithumb listing

HAEDAL surged by as much as 50% today ahead of its listing on South Korea’s Bithumb exchange.

According to CoinGecko data, the liquid staking protocol Haedal (HAEDAL) rallied to an intraday high of $0.174 during Asia morning hours on May 2, marking over 100% gains from its post-launch lows. Its market cap touched $32 million, and daily trading volume climbed 20% from the previous day, hitting around $180 million.

The key catalyst behind today’s move was Bithumb, a major South Korea-based crypto exchange, which announced the addition of a KRW trading pair for the HAEDAL token set at 6:00 PM KST on Friday, May 2, 2025.

This makes Bithumb the latest exchange to pick up HAEDAL, following earlier listings on Binance Alpha, Bybit, KuCoin, and MEXC on April 29, shortly after Haedal’s token generation event and mainnet launch on the same day. At launch, the total HAEDAL token supply was set at 1 billion.

Activity in HAEDAL’s derivatives market spiked after the news broke. Data from CoinGlass shows open interest in HAEDAL futures soared 210% in just 24 hours, crossing $45 million. The funding rate remained steady at 0.0050%, signaling that most traders are holding bullish positions and betting the rally will continue.

At launch, Haedal protocol distributed 5% of its total supply, or 50 million HAEDAL tokens, through an airdrop aimed at users active in its products and Sui ecosystem partnerships. However, just hours later, the token price dropped nearly 50% as many community members rushed to cash out their airdropped tokens.

What is Haedal?

Founded in 2023, Haedal is a liquid staking protocol built on the Sui blockchain. It lets users stake their SUI tokens and receive haSUI, a liquid, yield-generating derivative, allowing them to keep earning staking rewards while engaging in DeFi activities.

The HAEDAL token itself fuels the protocol’s governance, staking rewards, liquidity incentives, and fee discounts.

Back in January 2025, Haedal secured seed funding from top-tier investors like Hashed, OKX Ventures, Animoca Brands, and the Sui Foundation to help push forward its liquid staking infrastructure and DeFi solutions on the Sui network.