📄🧵The Three Facets of Babylon Genesis
Phase-2 is on the cusp of being launched: Babylon Genesis Mainnet. But what does this mean for Bitcoin, the ecosystem, and you?
Babylon Genesis has three facets to understand:
🟠The first-ever L1 secured by Bitcoin staking
🛰️A control plane for the Babylon ecosystem
🌊A liquidity hub for BTCFi
Let’s dive in 🔽
First, a recap: The Phase-1 launch in August 2024 saw over 57,000 BTC staked on the Babylon Bitcoin staking protocol, which would rank Babylon as the 10th largest PoS chain by staking market cap.
A thriving ecosystem has emerged, consisting of Liquid Staking Protocols, Wallets, Custodians, Bitcoin Secured Networks (BSNs), Finality Providers and Infrastructure Providers that want to build on top of the Babylon protocol. Of particular note is the emergence of a BTC liquidity layer on top of the BTC security layer.
How does Babylon Genesis bring it all together? 👇
🟠The first-ever L1 secured by Bitcoin staking
Bitcoin staking uses Bitcoin as an asset to secure PoS chains, and Babylon Genesis is the first blockchain to be a BSN with more to follow. Staking turns Bitcoin into a true slashable asset.
Babylon Genesis is secured by dual-quorum staking of 100 BABY-backed CometBFT validators + 60 Bitcoin-staked Finality Providers. Bitcoin timestamping occurs at ~30-minute intervals to further mitigate long-range attacks and enable fast, and technologically secure unbonding: 2 days for BABY stake, 7 days for Bitcoin stake.
🛰️A control plane coordinating Bitcoin security and liquidity across BSNs
✅Provides BTC timestamping infrastructure
✅Syncs PoS chains with BTC staking data
✅Acts as a data availability layer for BTC finality
BSNs will share validation rewards with Genesis for using these services, creating a sustainable economic model for all participants in the ecosystem.
🌊A liquidity hub for Bitcoin and BTCFi will flourish where independent builders will develop and run:
🔸DEXs & stable-swap pools for BTC LSTs
🔸LST minting with no bridging required
🔸BTCFi vaults, incentive markets, restaking, and rewards
…all secured by Bitcoin, creating an infrastructure layer and a Bitcoin-secured path for BTC liquidity to flow.
What’s next?
To reduce the trust in the BTC liquidity layer, Babylon is building the software infrastructure for a trust-minimized Bitcoin-Genesis bridge. The design builds on BitVM2 but solves open research problems:
🔸Trust-minimized BTC light clients
🔸Crypto-economic covenants via BTC staking
Stay tuned for more research updates and educational materials. With Babylon Genesis, BTC holders can earn validation rewards while securing PoS chains without ever leaving the Bitcoin network.
The Bitcoin Renaissance is here!
Disclaimer: The content shared here is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. It is not an offer or solicitation to purchase any tokens.