Bitcoin Protocol Babylon Pulls in $1.5B of Staking Deposits as Cap Lifted

Babylon,
a
Bitcoin
staking
platform
billed
as
a
new
way
of
providing
the
original
blockchain’s
security
to
new
protocols
and
decentralized
applications,
pulled
in
about
$1.5
billion
worth
of
bitcoin
on
Tuesday
after
briefly
opening
to
additional
deposits.

The
uptake
could
show
robust
demand
for
a
growing
decentralized
finance
(DeFi)
ecosystem
atop
the
15-year-old
Bitcoin
blockchain,
previously
confined
to
alternative
networks
like
Ethereum
and
Solana.

David
Tse,
Babylon’s
co-founder,
who
also
has
an
appointment
as
an
engineering
professor
at
Stanford
University,
told
CoinDesk
in
an
emailed
statement
that
the
inflows
were
“way
beyond
our
expectations.”

According
to
Babylon

staking
dashboard,
some
18,601
BTC
had
already
been
staked
as
of
20:03
UTC
(4:03
p.m.
ET),
with
an
additional
5,419
BTC
pending
in
the
staking
queue.

The
cap
was
lifted
for
about
10
Bitcoin
blocks
over
the
course
of
one
hour
and
23
minutes,
with
the
only
restriction
being
that
users
could
only
stake
up
to
500
BTC
per
transaction.
(Many
transactions
are
typically
included
in
each
block.)

Because
of
that
structure,
the
round
of
new
staking
deposits
was
described
as
“duration-based,”
in
a
departure
from
the
initial
opening
in
August,
where
the
cap
was
set
at
a
fixed
1,000
BTC
and

filled
up
in
an
hour
and
14
minutes.

Babylon’s
aim
is
to
allow
proof-of-stake
chains
to
acquire
capital
from
the
deep
reserves
stored
in
BTC.