Babylon

• Babylon lets Bitcoin holders stake BTC to secure other proof-of-stake networks without moving it off the Bitcoin chain.

• Staking uses Bitcoin's own scripting to lock coins and enforce slashing, so no bridge or custodian is involved.

• BABY is the staking and governance token of Babylon Genesis, the protocol's own chain.

• Initial supply of 10 billion BABY with ongoing inflation to reward stakers, reduced from 8% to about 5.5% a year by governance in late 2025.

• Used to secure Babylon Genesis and to govern protocol parameters.

Pros:

• Bitcoin never leaves the Bitcoin chain, which removes the bridge risk that defines most competing designs.

• Slashing is enforced through Bitcoin script rather than a trusted intermediary.

• Attracted substantial Bitcoin deposits since launch.

Cons:

• Yield depends on other chains choosing to pay for Bitcoin-backed security, which is still being established.

• Timelock mechanics are unfamiliar and unstaking is not immediate.

• Token unlocks extend over several years.

• The most trust-minimised approach to Bitcoin yield currently operating.

• Solves the bridge problem rather than mitigating it.

• Weigh whether demand for Bitcoin-backed security materialises at scale.

• Native Bitcoin staking with slashing enforced by Bitcoin script, requiring no bridge, wrapper or custodian.

• Making Bitcoin productive has always required moving it somewhere else, and bridges have lost billions doing so.

• Self-custodial timelocks let Bitcoin secure other chains while staying on its own.

• Founded by David Tse, a professor at Stanford, with Fisher Yu and Mingchao Yu.

• Backed by Paradigm, Polychain and Hack VC.

• No public ICO. BABY was distributed through airdrops to early stakers and ecosystem allocations in 2025.

• Slashing conditions apply to real Bitcoin, so misconfiguration by a finality provider can cost principal.

• Demand from consumer chains for rented Bitcoin security is unproven.

• Multi-year unlock schedule.

• Protocol complexity around Bitcoin timelocks is high and the design is young.

Babylon's papers start from the observation that Bitcoin's security budget is enormous and entirely unproductive outside its own chain, while proof-of-stake networks need staked capital and cannot easily obtain it. Existing attempts to connect the two require wrapping or bridging, which substitutes the bridge operator's security for Bitcoin's. Babylon instead uses Bitcoin's own timelock and signature primitives to create stakes that can be provably slashed on Bitcoin itself, with an accompanying timestamping protocol that lets other chains anchor their own history to Bitcoin blocks. The design's constraint is honest: unbonding is subject to timelock delays, and finality providers rather than stakers carry the operational responsibility that slashing punishes.