In the second phase of its staged deployment, Babylon, the Bitcoin staking protocol, has successfully rolled out its “Genesis” mainnet, as confirmed in an announcement made last Thursday. Since its inception in August, the protocol has amassed over 57,000 BTC, valued at more than $4 billion, in total value locked.
Babylon is a self-custodial system built to enable users to generate yield from their bitcoin holdings, which are secured in a proof-of-stake model to offer additional safety to supplementary apps. Babylon Genesis is being touted as the first-ever L1 blockchain safeguarded by Bitcoin.
“Until now, Bitcoin’s security aspects were restricted to the Bitcoin network itself. With Babylon Genesis, we’re transforming Bitcoin from a static asset into a dynamic pillar of the wider digital economy,” stated Fisher Yu, Babylon’s co-founder.
Furthermore, Babylon allows its users to stake its BABY token. The rewards are evenly distributed between BTC and BABY token stakers. As per the tokenomics details revealed this month, BABY’s initial total supply will be 10 billion tokens, and 6% of these will be allocated to early adopters.
Several major crypto companies and projects, including crypto custodians Bitgo and Anchorage, non-custodial Binance and OKX wallets, and Cosmos-based decentralized exchange Osmosis, reportedly aim to incorporate Babylon as a Bitcoin staking solution.
Among the protocol’s 250 “finality providers” are Allnodes, Figment, and Galaxy Digital. These entities ensure network uptime by approving transactions, akin to the role of validators in traditional PoS ecosystems.
Babylon received $8 million in seed funding disclosed in March 2023, followed by an $18 million Series A co-funded by Polychain Capital and Hack VC in late 2023, and an additional $70 million funding round led by Paradigm coinciding with its testnet launch in 2024.
Disclaimer: This article is intended solely for informational purposes and does not constitute legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
