Bitcoin-staking protocol Babylon attracts $1.4B in deposits

Plus, most Polymarket bettors lose money

article-image

temp-64GTX/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


Today, enjoy the 0xResearch newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the 0xResearch newsletter


Babylon sees $1.4 billion in deposits

Babylon is a restaking protocol on the CometBFT consensus that saw a mainnet launch in August. 

As of today, the Babylon chain has racked up an impressive 23,000 bitcoin ($1.4 billion) staked from 25.3k stakers. That puts it in the TVL ballpark of major restaking protocols like Symbiotic ($1.5 billion) and EigenLayer ($10.7 billion).

Loading Tweet..

Unlike previous sidechain attempts at bridging bitcoin to smart contract chains, Babylon offers a trustless coordination layer to do so without technically bridging bitcoin.

This is achieved through the use of Cosmos’s Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol to communicate messages between networks, and a mix of cryptography methods like “covenants” to lock bitcoin in a time-locked self-custodial vault until conditions are fulfilled. Additionally, timestamping is used to synchronize a record of transactions on PoS chains.

To get around the lack of smart contract compatibility on the Bitcoin chain, Babylon’s design requires stakers to use their private keys to lock and unlock their stake, which is then delegated to a trusted validator for a fee.

In the event of malicious behavior, the validator’s private key is revealed and slashed with extractable one-time signatures (EOTS) — a concept that builds on Bitcoin’s Schnorr signatures algorithm.

This architecture allows bitcoin stakers to “bridge” their bitcoin into a PoS chain, and receive a yield that is paid out in the destination PoS chain’s tokens, a future feature to be implemented.

Presently, the two largest stakers are liquid restaking protocols Lombard, and Solv Protocol, which have a total delegated 7166 and 6009 bitcoin, respectively.

Solv Protocol also announced yesterday the Staking Abstraction Layer (SAL), a framework to standardize token standards across the growing number of bitcoin derivative tokens.

Due to its lack of smart contract capabilities, Bitcoin DeFi must go cross-chain. This in turn creates a need for such common standard frameworks. 

Various cross-chain token standards have been used in Ethereum DeFi to create standardization, such as LayerZero’s OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) and Axelar’s ITS (Interchain Token Service) standard.

Chart of the Day

Most Polymarket users lose money:

Source: Layerhub

As with most casino-based businesses, most Polymarket users are unsurprisingly in the red. Based on Layerhub’s data, 86.7% of users have made losing bets on the prediction market. Only about 2,148 (1.2%) of Polymarket users have made profits of upwards of $1k.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Strive board member Ben Werkman expects thousands of firms to hold BTC, if only “to protect themselves”

article-image

To date, 12.6 million humans have scanned at a World Orb

article-image

One small step for man, one giant leap for Bitcoin

article-image

Jay Woods, Chief Global Strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, said it would be “very rare” for an acquisition to happen since the IPO may occur as soon as next week

article-image

Sponsored

Money is one of the most consequential pieces of infrastructure, and M0 believes its architecture should serve builders, not extract from them

article-image

The financial backwaters they laughed at might be the only thing keeping the dollar afloat