Ethereum
Bitcoin startup Babylon raises $70 million to bring BTC staking to Ethereum and Solana
A crypto startup looking to use Bitcoin for native staking on other blockchain networks has secured $70 million in new funding to fuel its ambitious goals.
Babylon, which aims to do something never done before, secured the money from lead investor Paradigm, a major crypto venture capital firm. Other contributions came from Bullish Capital and Polychain Capital.
The startup wants to use Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, as a staking resource. Previously, the the company said Decrypt that it is building infrastructure to use Bitcoin staking to validate nodes on networks such as Ethereum And Solana.
“This funding will accelerate our mission to make Bitcoin the security backbone of proof-of-stake systems,” said Babylon founder David Tse. said in a report. “Our team is dedicated to advancing the utility of Bitcoin beyond its traditional roles and improving the security of the entire blockchain ecosystem.”
Currently, Bitcoin operates on a very different system from staking protocols because it uses a system called proof of work.
Proof of work requires a lot of computing power, in the form of miners, to process transactions. This is a costly and energy-intensive process.
But with proof of participation, anyone can participate by “locking” their assets to power a crypto network. Staking networks include Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano.
Babylon wants those who hold Bitcoin to be able to earn income by pledging their coins to staking networks. It’s a bold challenge, but the startup, led by a Stanford professor and a former Dolby engineer, says it has found a way. Last year, it raised $18 million from investors.
If he gets his way, those sitting on satoshis (i.e. the smallest denomination of Bitcoin) will soon be able to earn some yield.
“Babylon will be the catalyst that redefines the utility of BTC and ushers in a new era of native Bitcoin applications,” Luke Pearson, general partner at Polychain Capital, said in a statement.
Edited by Andrew Hayward