With the hot development of Bitcoin ecology, Bitcoin DeFi Summer has arrived. Various institutions and innovative projects are rushing to enter the market to fill the market gap of trillions of dollars in value-added services for Bitcoin assets. According to the past experience of Ethereum, the largest ecosystem in the industry, it can be predicted that where Bitcoin will flow to at that time will inevitably be the place where "golden eggs are laid", and it is also the focus that we must pay attention to...
01 Where will Bitcoin go?
The chart of the value flow of several major public chain assets shown by cryptoflows, a crypto data tracking website, shows that Bitcoin is providing up to 15 billion US dollars of "value export" to other ecosystems, ranking first. The demand for Bitcoin asset appreciation and its potential are huge. The Bitcoin ecosystem has just started and cannot bear the demand for these assets for the time being. It is expected that a large number of idle assets are in a state of "ready to move". If we "see the leopard in the tube" from the flow of funds in the Ethereum ecosystem that has already innovated and developed in advance, we may be able to understand in advance where the funds will flow when the Bitcoin ecosystem gradually matures. In the Ethereum ecosystem, the main TVL flows to DeFi, Layer2, Staking, and Restaking. Smart money sees the security and stability of the time-tested old DeFi, the Airdrop expectation of Layer2 (grossing demand), and the stable and secure yield of Staking and Restaking. Among them, the funds in Layer2 may disappear due to the existence and landing of airdrop expectations, which has the disadvantages of high uncertainty and volatility, while the returns of Staking and Restaking are relatively stable, highly certain, and highly secure. In addition, Restaking is a new narrative and new outlet, so a large amount of funds quickly flowed in and became one of the tracks with the fastest TVL increase. For example, in the Restaking protocol, the total value locked in the EigenLayer project alone exceeded 10 billion US dollars in 8 months after its launch, which is a very impressive result.
In general, Staking and Restaking are one of the fastest growing tracks for TVL. How much TVL will the Bitcoin economy, which is about to be “opened”, inject into the market?
02 Ankr and Babylon launched the first Bitcoin staking solution. Recently, Ankr and Babylon launched the first Bitcoin staking solution, with the goal of "unlocking 21 million bitcoins to provide protection for the POS network."
Due to the advancement of cross-chain solutions, more and more proof-of-stake (POS) blockchains have been launched on the market, which has also brought a large number of POS staking needs. Babylon's Bitcoin staking protocol can not only allow idle Bitcoin to be POS Staking, but also provide Restaking similar to EigenLayer to increase security incentives. Partner Ankr is responsible for creating Liquid Staking Token (LST) for Babylon's staked Bitcoin, similar to Lido's stETH issued on the PoS chain. Of course, as a veteran staking infrastructure provider, Ankr is also responsible for providing staking nodes, providing security infrastructure, that is, ensuring the safe and stable operation of POS nodes.
What are the highlights of this collaboration between Ankr and Babylon?
1) Strong alliances bring new industry use cases for the Bitcoin ecosystem + Restaking. According to media reports, Babylon received $18 million in investment at the end of last year, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, including Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, Castle Island Ventures and OKX Ventures and other institutions participated. The research team formed by the two co-founders of Babylon, David Tse and Fisher Yu, and Eigen Layer founder Sreeram Kannan, co-authored the research paper "Bitcoin Enhanced Proof-of-Stake Security: Possibility and Impossibility" and obtained a Milestone, recognized by the 2023 IEEE Security and Privacy Symposium. Based on this research, Babylon was born, a revolutionary protocol for improving the security of POS chains. As a partner, Ankr is a veteran star project with rich experience in the field of Staking infrastructure services. It has also reached cooperation with EigenLayer, a leading project of the same type.
The background and strength of the Babylon and Ankr project parties are both among the top in the crypto industry. This cooperation can be described as a powerful combination, bringing stable and reliable new use cases to the two major narrative outlets of Bitcoin ecology + Restaking.
2) Bring three layers of income to idle Bitcoin assets. According to the design of relevant incentive mechanisms, after obtaining LST through Ankr staking to the Babylon protocol and obtaining two layers of income through staking, you can also participate in the DeFi project of the relevant ecosystem again to obtain the third layer of rewards. Income is the most direct incentive mechanism to attract TVL inflows. As mentioned above, stability, high certainty, high security, coupled with the super expectations of the two narrative outlets of Bitcoin ecology and Restaking, its appeal is extraordinary.
3) Bring the security value of the Bitcoin protocol to the POS chain. In the past, we always complained that DeFi's "air" nesting behavior did not bring any value. The Staking and Restaking brought by Babylon and Ankr not only brought safe and stable appreciation to idle Bitcoin assets, but also met the strong security needs of the POS chain market and provided it with better security protection. Therefore, the POS chain provides "security fees" as an incentive in return, and returns them to the pledged users through the Babylon protocol, forming a closed value loop.
03 Ankr’s Advantages in Bitcoin Ecosystem and Future Outlook From the strong cooperation between Ankr and Babylon mentioned above, it is not difficult to see the important role played by Ankr in the cooperation. It is not the first day that the industry has known Ankr. We can see its presence in the mainstream encryption track and related ecological communities. Now, it has appeared again in the Bitcoin ecology, Restaking and other hot spots. So what are its advantages in these hot spots? What actions will this encryption "catfish" take in the future?
1) Ankr's own advantages: As the "glue" connecting all parties, it is not surprising that Ankr has entered the narrative trend of Bitcoin ecology, because Ankr's own advantages are here. In the Staking track, Ankr provides a variety of blockchain services and products, such as node deployment, developer tools, etc., focusing on allowing developer teams and users to benefit from blockchain technology without worry and effort. In previous media reports, Ankr has achieved a series of important achievements and innovative products in 2023: In terms of RPC request processing services, Ankr has achieved amazing results, supporting 45 blockchains, with an annual total of 2.1 trillion RPC requests, and added RPC services for 22 new blockchains. In addition, Ankr has established partnerships with Microsoft and Tencent Cloud to provide more reliable and easy-to-use node access services.
Ankr has also launched a number of innovative products for infrastructure optimization, including Rollup as a Service (Raas), Ankr Verify, and more. Ankr Staking also achieved gratifying results in 2023. In addition to expanding the TVL under management, adding new tokens and functions, it also reached a cooperation with EigenLayer. At the same time, relying on its strength and good reputation in the blockchain field, Ankr has successfully reached a number of major strategic cooperations. These cooperations cover multiple fields, including games, sports, entertainment, and blockchain infrastructure, including star partners such as Mirage, Chiliz, zkSync, and Polygon Supernets. In the cooperation with Babylon, it can be said that it is like glue, connecting infrastructure services and users, staking agreements, related POS application chain ecology (Cosmos ecology, etc.), and even linking to on-chain Dapps such as DeFi, directly opening up the upstream and downstream of the industry.
2) Traffic entry partners bring service distribution. Ankr has also reached cooperation with super Web3 traffic entry points such as Trust Wallet and Okx Wallet. These partners are the best on-chain service distributors in the industry. For example, the Bitcoin staking service in cooperation with Babylon can be distributed through these partners, and users can also conveniently enter the relevant services directly in these wallet interfaces to efficiently complete the Bitcoin appreciation.
3) Further expand the Bitcoin economy As the Bitcoin ecosystem continues to develop, Ankr is expected to further expand the Bitcoin economy, introduce BTC TVL into more other ecosystems, and bring more benefits to the upstream and downstream of these ecosystems.
4) Ankr's DePin potential In 2024, in addition to the two narratives mentioned above, there is another eye-catching narrative outlet that perfectly matches Ankr, that is DePin (full name: Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks, which means decentralized physical infrastructure network in Chinese). This is also the main positioning of Ankr, a blockchain infrastructure service provider, and now there is a new concept name to represent it. Ankr's past and current services all reflect its status as a DePin "veteran", and its achievements are quite fruitful.
Just now, Ankr announced in its blog the launch of a new DePin partner expansion network as a new infrastructure for decentralized Web3 (Ultra Sound Infrastructure), aiming to increase decentralization and expand its DePin network, make Ankr a DePin Token to incentivize cooperation, support on-chain AI and other use cases, etc. As a key symbol of the Ultra Sound Infrastructure project, the utility of the ANKR Token has been expanded, serving as a payment and reward token for network users and node providers.
In the innovation and exploration of the crypto industry, there is always a variety of builders behind the new narratives, and excellent projects always choose excellent partners. Ankr is always chosen, perhaps because there are not many projects like Ankr that play to their own advantages and connect the upstream and downstream of various crypto ecosystems like glue. In the future new narratives such as Bitcoin ecology, Restaking, and DePin, it is likely that Ankr will often be seen.
