In the middle of this year, the scale of locked positions in the Restaking track represented by EigenLayer, Karak, Symbiotic and Solayer exceeded 20 billion US dollars. As the Eigenlayer corresponding to Ethereum, Babylon, the most important project in the BTC Staking narrative, has been attracting market attention since the launch of the test network. After opening the staking quota twice, Babylon's direct deposit addresses have exceeded 25,000, and the number of deposited bitcoins has exceeded 23,000.

Babylon BTC Staking Narrative Drives BTC LST Growth

From last year to the beginning of this year, the Ethereum ecosystem has increased the overall ETH pledge rate with the help of the EigenLayer Restaking "mountain", and has also pushed the LST deposit volume to new highs for a long time, and it still remains at a high level.

When Babylon's popularity brought the spring breeze of staking to the Bitcoin ecosystem, it also promoted the construction of LST in its ecosystem. Driven by Babylon's pre-staking activities, the deposit volume of major BTC LSTs has continued to rise, and currently more than 20,000 bitcoins have participated in BTC LST deposits. Compared with ETH LST, which has a scale of more than 3.5 billion US dollars, BTC LST, with a deposit of about 1 billion US dollars, is still in its infancy.

After Babylon’s two staking openings, five LSTs, Bedrock, Lorenzo, PumpBTC, Solv and Lombard, currently occupy nearly 85% of the Babylon staking pool.

Babylo Project Introduction

Babylon is a protocol designed to leverage the security of Bitcoin to provide security for other PoS chains. Babylon can provide secure, cross-chain-free, and custody-free native staking solutions for PoS chains including BTC layer2, and promote cross-chain interoperability. It is often compared to Eigenlayer of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Babylo's core working principle

  • Remote staking: Utilize Bitcoin’s UTXO model and script system to achieve staking, confiscation and rewards of Bitcoin.

  • Timestamp Server: By recording the events of the PoS chain on the Bitcoin blockchain, it provides an immutable timestamp for these events.

  • Three-layer architecture: Bitcoin as the bottom layer, Babylon as the middle layer, and PoS chain as the upper layer. Babylon is responsible for recording the checkpoints of the PoS chain to Bitcoin.

Luxurious financing team

Babylon raised a total of US$90 million

2022-01-01 Babylon completes $8 million seed round of financing, led by IDG Capital and Breyer Capital

On December 7, 2023, it completed a US$18 million Series A financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC. Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, OKX Ventures, Finality Capital, Breyer Capital and Symbolic Capital also participated in the investment.

On February 27, 2024, Binance Labs, the world's leading blockchain investment institution, announced an investment in the Babylon project. Although the specific amount was not disclosed, this move undoubtedly brought more industry resources and exposure opportunities to the project.

On May 30, 2024, the Babylon project reached a historic financing milestone, successfully raising $70 million. This round of financing was led by Paradigm* and Polychain again, and many well-known investment institutions such as Bullish, HashKey Capital, and IOSG Ventures also actively followed up.

Babylon's advantages

  • Enhance PoS chain security: Utilize the security of Bitcoin to improve the PoS chain's ability to resist attacks.

  • Shorten the staking cycle: shorten the staking cycle of the PoS chain through Bitcoin’s timestamp mechanism.

  • Promote cross-chain interoperability: Enable seamless communication and data sharing between different blockchains.

  • Bring new vitality to the Bitcoin ecosystem: Activate dormant Bitcoin and bring new application scenarios to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Babylon is a set of security sharing protocols that brings Bitcoin's unparalleled security to the decentralized world. The latest protocol, Bitcoin staking, enables Bitcoin holders to stake their Bitcoin in a trustless and self-custodial way, providing cryptoeconomic security for PoS (Proof of Stake) systems. Babylon can provide Bitcoin security for Bitcoin L2.

Summarize

With BN’s announcement of joining, Babylon can be said to have completely entered the social circle of the world’s top exchanges, and it has a high FDV since its launch.

In summary, as a leading project in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Babylon will expand an ecological world centered on Bitcoin, unlock the staking value of Bitcoin with a market value of $123.28 billion, turn Bitcoin into a more extensive interest-bearing asset, and provide income for Bitcoin holders. At the same time, Babylon greatly enhances the ecological value of Bitcoin, vertically expands the second-layer and middle-layer applications of Bitcoin, horizontally expands the income value of Bitcoin in various POS chains, and cultivates a safer and larger POS economy. #Babylon #BTC☀