NAVI Launches Its First EVM Vault, Routing Ethereum USDC Into Sui Lending

NAVI Protocol has opened its first vault for Ethereum users. The USDC High Yield Vault, built on Lagoon's vault infrastructure, accepts native USDC on Ethereum and routes it to NAVI USDC Prime, a lending vault on Sui. NAVI announced the launch on October 26, and Sui's official account amplified it the same day.

How it works

NAVI says depositors connect an Ethereum-compatible wallet and submit a deposit request. Requests settle in batches, usually within about 24 hours. NAVI, acting as the vault's curator, then bridges the USDC to Sui and supplies it to NAVI USDC Prime. Depositors track their position and claim USDC on NAVI's lending page. NAVI's pitch is "no new wallet" and "no manual bridge": the bridging step is handled by the curator rather than the user.

Lagoon, which builds on-chain vault infrastructure based on the ERC-7540 standard, lists NAVI Protocol as the curator on the vault's page. The vault takes USDC on Ethereum and issues nUSDC shares. Lagoon's page showed room for about $1 million in total deposits and roughly $1,000 deposited early Monday, so the vault is at the very start. Reported yield figures differed between NAVI's app and Lagoon's page in the first hours, so SuiWire is not citing an APR.

The Sui side

NAVI USDC Prime, which NAVI's app lists as USDC Prime Blue-chip, is a lending vault that NAVI launched in August. NAVI says it has drawn more than $8 million in cumulative USDC deposits since launch, almost all of it from users already on Sui. NAVI's Earn page showed about $5.7 million currently deposited in Prime on Monday. NAVI's core lending protocol has third-party audits, including a 2024 full audit by Veridise. SuiWire did not find audits published specifically for NAVI Prime or for the new Ethereum-side vault at the time of writing.

Sui's official account described the vault this way: "Keep your Ethereum wallet. Earn on Sui," adding that every deposit is new stablecoin liquidity for Sui DeFi.

Why it matters

Most stablecoin liquidity sits on Ethereum, and moving it to Sui has meant bridging by hand. DefiLlama's chart showed about $444 million in stablecoins on Sui on Monday, down from about $567 million on October 21. A vault that lets Ethereum holders deposit without touching a bridge or a Sui wallet is an attempt to pull in new USDC. The trade-off is trust. Deposits are asynchronous, they depend on NAVI's curator to move funds across chains, and returns depend on lending demand on Sui.

The result will show up in the vault's deposits. SuiWire will track whether USDC flows in beyond the first test deposits.