Key Summary
– Bitcoin staking helps upgrade cross-chain security: Babylon Labs uses Taproot script to achieve truly trustless BTC staking, making Bitcoin a security layer for PoS blockchains and completely avoiding custody risks.
– The core role of $BABY token: As the native token of Babylon, $BABY is mainly used for governance, transaction fee payment, and incentives for BTC stakers, validators, and cooperative chains to build a robust and secure shared market.
– Strong capital strength + rapid ecological growth: Babylon has successfully raised $70 million and integrated with multiple wallets, exchanges and DeFi protocols. By the end of 2024, more than 57,000 BTC have been locked, with strong growth momentum.
– Multi-staking and future changes in DeFi: Babylon plans to launch a “multi-staking” mechanism to ensure the security of multiple chains with a single BTC deposit, thereby releasing greater liquidity and reshaping the DeFi ecosystem.
The Bitcoin (BTC) community has been exploring how to make Bitcoin profitable without compromising decentralization and self-custody. At the same time, many PoS (Proof of Stake) blockchains face challenges in ensuring network security and often have to rely on high inflation or centralized solutions. So, is there a protocol that can meet the needs of both parties at the same time? Babylon Labs believes that the answer is yes.
Babylon uses native BTC staking—running directly on the Bitcoin network—to make BTC the core pillar of cross-chain security, providing trust-minimized security for multiple blockchains. This not only expands the application scenarios of decentralized finance (DeFi), but also opens a new era of cross-chain security. The upcoming $BABY token will further introduce governance and incentive mechanisms to more closely link the interests of BTC stakers, validators, and partner blockchains to jointly build a secure shared ecosystem.
So who founded Babylon Labs? What is their vision? How did this technology come about and develop? Why is it important and how does it work?
Table of contents
Who is the team behind Babylon Labs?
– Founder and core team
– Strategic investors and partners
What services does Babylon Labs provide?
– Trustless Bitcoin Staking Mechanism
– Babylon Chain and Bitcoin Security Network (BSN)
– The role of $BABY token
When was Babylon Labs founded?
– Important milestones and financing history
– Roadmap: Phase 1 to Phase 3
Which ecosystems does Babylon Labs integrate with?
– Technology Integration: Bitcoin, Cosmos and Future Cross-Chain Bridges
– User entry: wallets, exchanges and DeFi protocols
Why is Bitcoins shared security important?
– Advantages to PoS networks
– Benefits for Bitcoin Holders
– Technical mechanism for trustless BTC staking
– Finality Providers and Slashing
– Governance and incentive mechanism of $BABY token
The team behind Babylon Labs: Founders, Team and Partners
Who founded Babylon Labs?
– David Tse (co-founder): Professor at Stanford University, renowned in the fields of network technology, consensus mechanisms, and distributed systems.
– Dr. Mingchao “Fisher” Yu (co-founder CTO): Cryptography expert, leading the technical architecture of Babylon.
The two founders believe that Bitcoin staking can serve as a reliable alternative to the fragmentation and high volatility in the emerging PoS ecosystem. Under their leadership, Babylon Labs has grown into a global team of engineers, security researchers, and Cosmos SDK experts, dedicated to promoting Bitcoin as the cornerstone of cross-chain security.
Image Credit: 10x Station
Babylons strategic investors and ecological partners
– Top VCs: Paradigm, Polychain, Bullish, and Binance Labs led Babylon’s $70 million funding round in 2024.
– Validators and Finality Providers (FPs): Over 250 independent entities (e.g. P2P.org, InfStones) connecting BTC stakers with PoS blockchains that require additional security.
– Wallets and exchanges: Platforms including Binance Earn, OKX Web3 Wallet, Bitget Wallet, etc. have integrated Babylon’s Taproot staking function, allowing users to participate easily.
– Liquidity staking protocols: Projects such as Lombard Finance (LBTC) convert staked BTC into tradable tokens, providing higher liquidity for the DeFi ecosystem.
Why are these partners important? The participation of these institutions not only proves the feasibility of Babylons solution, but also ensures its rapid implementation in different fields, from venture capital to ordinary users, and comprehensively improves Babylons market recognition.
Image Credit: CryptoRank
What services does Babylon Labs provide? BTC staking and $BABY tokens
What is Babylons core innovation?
Babylons core technological breakthrough is trustless Bitcoin staking. Unlike solutions that require BTC to be anchored to other blockchains, Babylon uses Taproot scripts directly on the Bitcoin network to achieve native BTC staking. This means that users always retain the right to self-custody of BTC without relying on any centralized bridge or third-party custodian.
At the same time, the Babylon chain (based on the Cosmos SDK architecture) acts as a coordinator between Bitcoin and multiple PoS blockchains, which are called Bitcoin Secured Networks (BSNs). The Babylon chain records checkpoints on the Bitcoin network regularly, using the BTC timestamp mechanism to speed up transaction finality and shorten the unbonding period of the PoS chain.
Image Credit: Babylon Staking Interface
What is the purpose of $BABY token?
– Governance: $BABY is the native token of the Babylon chain. Holders can participate in governance voting such as network upgrades, parameter adjustments, and resource allocation.
- Utility Fees: Transaction fees on the Babylon chain are denominated in $BABY. In addition, some BTC stakers’ fees when paired with the BSN network may be allocated to $BABY holders to ensure interest alignment.
– Distribution: Babylon plans to ensure that early BTC pledgers, final confirmation providers, open source contributors and community members can become part of the ecosystem and share the benefits of Babylon’s development through large-scale airdrops.
Can $BABY become an important token for cross-chain governance? The team believes that $BABY will become the core of the Bitcoin Security Sharing Market, providing a unified incentive mechanism for BTC stakers, validators, and PoS blockchains, and accelerating the development of the cross-chain security ecosystem.
Image Credit: Babylon Foundation X (Twitter)
When was Babylon Labs founded? Key Milestones and Roadmap
Important historical milestones
– Early 2022: David Tse and Fisher Yu founded Babylon Labs, focusing on Bitcoin staking solutions.
– December 2022: Completed $18 million seed round financing to promote the development of testnet prototype.
– February 2024: The testnet is officially launched, with more than 100,000 BTC stakers participating within 48 hours, indicating strong market demand.
– May 2024: Received $70 million in financing led by Paradigm to further improve Bitcoin staking, timestamping mechanism and data availability protocol.
– August 2024: Phase 1 of the mainnet is launched, and part of the BTC staking quota is opened. As of December 2024, 57,290 BTC (about US$5.6 billion) has been locked.
Image Credit: Pitchbook
Phase-2 and Phase-3 Outlook
– Early 2025 (Phase-2): The Babylon chain and $BABY token are officially launched, marking the establishment of a two-way market between BTC stakers and the PoS blockchain and the start of a security sharing mechanism.
– Later in 2025 (Phase-3): Launch Multi-Staking, which allows the same BTC stake to provide security for multiple blockchains at the same time, greatly improving capital utilization. In addition, Babylon plans to expand timestamp and data availability services to a wider ecosystem.
Will multi-staking change the DeFi landscape? Babylon envisions a future where a single BTC pledge can not only protect multiple blockchains at the same time, but also receive multiple rewards, completely changing the way blockchain security mechanisms and capital efficiency are allocated.
Image Credit: Babylon Foundation Official Blog
What ecosystems does Babylon Labs integrate with? Global Adoption and Partners
Babylons range of technology integrations
– Bitcoin Ledger: Babylon uses the Taproot script to ensure that BTC always remains on the Bitcoin network without the need for cross-chain packaging or bridging assets.
– Cosmos Ecosystem: The Babylon chain is built on the Cosmos SDK, supports IBC (Inter-Chain Communication Protocol), and can interoperate with other Cosmos-related blockchains.
– Future Ethereum/Solana Bridges: Babylon’s flexible architecture can extend BTC’s security mechanism to almost all PoS ecosystems or L2 Rollups, bringing more possibilities for cross-chain applications.
Image Credit: Babylon Architecture
How do users access Babylon?
– Wallet Integrations: Mainstream wallets such as OKX Web3 Wallet, Bitget Wallet, UniSat, etc. have built-in Babylon’s BTC staking function.
– Centralized Exchanges: Binance Earn provides a simple and easy-to-use interface, allowing BTC holders to easily participate in staking and earn returns.
– DeFi Protocols: Liquidity Staking Tokens (LST), such as LBTC, can be traded on DEXs, increasing the liquidity and profit opportunities of BTC staked assets.
Through the integration of exchanges, wallets and liquidity staking protocols, Babylon has greatly lowered the technical threshold for BTC staking, allowing users who are not familiar with blockchain technology to easily participate in a decentralized, secure, and shared ecosystem.
Image Credit: Babylon Staking Interface
Why is Bitcoin’s security sharing mechanism so important? From the perspective of PoS and DeFi
Why does the PoS network need Bitcoin for security?
Bitcoin is the most trusted and well-funded cryptocurrency currently, providing a stable security foundation for emerging and existing PoS networks. Traditionally, smaller blockchains have typically needed to maintain security through highly inflated native tokens or unproven validator sets. By “renting security” from BTC stakers, these PoS blockchains can launch or scale without relying on high inflation strategies or fragile consensus mechanisms.
Image Credit: Babylon Labs
Why should Bitcoin holders care about this development?
– Yield Generation: BTC stakers can earn rewards from multiple PoS networks simultaneously without giving up ownership of BTC.
– Asset diversification: Participating in the PoS ecosystem allows BTC holders to enter more DeFi fields and broaden investment opportunities.
- Preserving Bitcoins Ethos: Since the staking mechanism runs based on the Taproot script, there is no need for wrapped BTC or centralized bridges, ensuring the trustlessness of Bitcoin.
Could this unlock billions of dollars in crypto liquidity? If only a small fraction of BTC holders participate in staking, the total locked value (TVL) could exceed the sum of most current PoS ecosystems, completely changing the global DeFi landscape.
How does Babylon Labs work? Staking mechanism, technical implementation and $BABY airdrop
How does trustless Bitcoin staking work?
– Taproot script: BTC is staked in a specific Taproot address, ensuring that users always retain self-custody rights.
– Babylon Chain Coordination: Relayers pass BTC pledge transaction information to the Babylon chain, linking the pledged BTC to validators and final confirmation providers (FPs).
– Finality Providers (FPs): Users can delegate BTC pledge to FPs, who are responsible for verifying blocks on the Babylon chain and multiple PoS networks.
- Slashing Logic: If FPs cheat or act maliciously on any protected chain, Babylon will perform programmable punishment to make part of the staked BTC unredeemable to ensure the security of the PoS ecosystem.
What is the purpose of $BABY token?
– Governance: $BABY holders can vote on proposals that affect the Babylon chain, such as adding new Bitcoin Security Networks (BSNs), adjusting fee policies, or upgrading software.
– Fee Sharing: The fees generated by some BTC stakers matching with the PoS network may be distributed to $BABY token holders to generate additional income.
– Airdrops: In the first phase, BTC stakers and community contributors will receive $BABY tokens to promote the decentralized development of the ecosystem.
Will users worry about BTC being punitively destroyed? Babylon has completed a security audit and adopted a phased rollout feature to ensure that the penalty mechanism is only for malicious behavior. This strict risk control mechanism is designed to protect the billions of dollars of BTC locked in the Taproot address, allowing users to stake with confidence.
Image Credit: Babylon Foundation Official Blog
Summary and Future Outlook
Babylon Labs is reinventing decentralized finance (DeFi) by bringing Bitcoin ’s stability and liquidity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. The Babylon chain retains the self-custody characteristics of BTC while promoting a thriving PoS security sharing market, attracting major blockchains to obtain additional security. The newly launched $BABY token connects the entire ecosystem through a transparent governance structure, rewarding early adopters and core contributors.
Want to learn more?
Visit the Babylon Labs official website for announcements, technical documentation, and roadmap information.
Join the Discord or Telegram community to communicate with Finality Providers (FPs), wallet partners, and BTC stakers.
Follow the Babylon Foundation ’s airdrop updates. If you participated in the first phase of BTC staking or contributed to open source projects, you may be eligible for $BABY tokens.
Will Bitcoin Become the Ultimate Security Layer for Multi-Chain DeFi?
Judging from Babylons rapid adoption rate and strong capital support, this vision is becoming a reality. Babylon combines Bitcoins credit endorsement, Cosmos interoperability and the security needs of the PoS ecosystem, which may usher in a new era of blockchain security. This will be the first time that Bitcoin has surpassed its position as digital gold and become the core cornerstone of cross-chain security.
As Phase-3 progresses, Multi-Staking and enhanced timestamp mechanisms will further expand Babylons influence. If all goes well, the protocol may protect dozens of blockchains and thousands of decentralized applications (DApps), while providing BTC holders with a truly stable income channel.
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