Babylon protocol developers have launched bitcoin staking

What’s new? Babylon Labs has launched bitcoin staking in its Babylon protocol. By putting BTC into staking, users will give the Babylon Genesis network the security that is maintained in the Bitcoin blockchain through the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, and will also be able to earn rewards for participation. The developers emphasize that staking is non-custodial, meaning that holders retain sole control over their coins.

Source: X.com

What else is known? After the public launch of the Babylon Genesis network, the limit on staking is 1000 coins. It will be lifted within two weeks, allowing the remaining coins of users to be placed in the staking and start accepting new ones.

According to the developers’ plan, this will make the network one of the most secure in the world, as billions of dollars worth of bitcoins will be placed in staking.

At the time of writing, the total value locked (TVL) of the Babylon protocol has reached $4,12 billion or over 57 000 BTC.

On April 10, the developers launched the Babylon Genesis mainnet and held a launch and airdrop of the native token BABY among early users. On the same day, the asset was listed on leading centralized exchanges (CEXs) including Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, KuCoin, MEXC, and BingX.

The total stock of the asset is 10 billion coins, with 6% allocated to early adopters. BABY can also be staked, with rewards split 50/50 between BTC and BABY stakers.

The asset is currently ranked 210th overall cryptocurrency by market capitalization with a figure of $284,34 million and is trading at $0,1243, having lost 9% overnight. The asset peaked above $0,16 on April 12.

Work on Babylon began in April 2023, and the launch took place in August 2024. It is a decentralized protocol for providing native bitcoin staking directly on the blockchain. It provides a non-custodial system to generate revenue from the bitcoin blockchain and provide security to additional applications.

Babylon raised $8 million in a seed round in March 2023, then in a Series A round later that year, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, it raised another $18 million, and during the testnet launch in 2024, led by Paradigm, it raised another $70 million.

The project’s partners include Allnodes, Figment, and Galaxy Digital, among others. They keep the network running smoothly by approving transactions and acting as validators in the PoS blockchain.

The team describes Babylon Genesis as the world’s first bitcoin-protected Layer 1 (L1) blockchain. As part of the next and final phase of the project’s launch, the developers will allow any other decentralized network to use Babylon Genesis for security and liquidity.

As Babylon co-founder Fisher Yu noted, bitcoin has always been the benchmark for security, but previously that security was limited to the Bitcoin network itself. “Through Babylon Genesis, Bitcoin is evolving from an underutilized asset into a dynamic cornerstone of the broader digital economy,” the creator stated.

A number of major crypto firms plan to integrate Babylon as a BTC staking solution, including custodians Bitgo and Anchorage, non-custodial wallets Binance and OKX, and Cosmos-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Osmosis.