Babylon

What is Babylon?

Babylon is a suite of Bitcoin security-sharing protocols built using the Cosmos SDK. It enhances Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains by integrating Bitcoin’s unrivaled security, without requiring custody, bridging, or wrapped assets.

Developed by Stanford researchers and top Layer 1 developers, Babylon leverages Bitcoin timestamping and checkpointing via IBC to improve the security and resilience of PoS systems, offering protection against long-range attacks, censorship, and more.

Babylon Genesis is the first Bitcoin Secured Network (BSN) and serves as the control plane for future BSNs, unlocking Bitcoin's economic and security potential in PoS ecosystems.

Built on the Cosmos SDK, Babylon Genesis introduces:

• Native BTC staking (non-custodial, no bridging)
• BABY token staking for governance and operations
• Bitcoin timestamping & checkpointing for robust finality
• Trust-minimized interoperability and security orchestration

How do BTC and BABY staking work on Babylon?

Staking is a great way for long-term Bitcoin investors to earn passive income. BTC will be staked through Babylon Bitcoin staking protocol utilizing Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains without needing any custody, bridging, or wrapping tokens.

Stakers, by initiating the staking transaction on the Bitcoin chain, lock their BTC to a self-custodian vault. Once the transaction is confirmed, the chosen finality provider starts validating transactions and proposing new blocks on the PoS chain.

Stakers, by delegating tokens to BTC finality providers, give voting rights to these to validate transactions on the blockchain and propose new blocks. The more stake is attributed to finality providers, the more it will be able to take part in the network consensus and earn rewards for its stakers.

At the heart of Babylon Genesis lies a dual-staking model that combines Bitcoin’s security with the operational flexibility of the Cosmos ecosystem. BTC staking strengthens the network’s economic security and provides robust finality, while the native token, BABY, is staked to CometBFT validators like Stakin, who are responsible for block production, consensus, and governance. This hybrid model allows Babylon to deliver unmatched decentralized security by fusing Bitcoin’s resilience with Cosmos’s modular architecture.

A quick example: Suppose a blockchain network offers a 5% reward rate for a staking period of 1 year (5% APR). You decide to lock up and stake 100 tokens on the network. After a year, you can access your staked tokens and receive five additional tokens as your reward – minus eventual fees charged by the staking provider.

Why is Stakin a great choice as a Babylon finality provider?

There are several advantages when staking your BTC and BABY with Stakin, such as:

• Triple AAA-rated institutional staking provider by Staking Rewards

• ISO 27001 certified staking provider

• Reliable infrastructure - We distribute our servers across various geographical locations and partner with premier bare metal and cloud providers

• Dedicated support for all your staking, unstaking, and network-related questions

• Institutional grade SLAs with uptime and slashing guarantees for both the validator and oracle operations

What kind of institutional services does Stakin offer for BTC and BABY staking?

As an institutional-grade Babylon network node operator, Stakin has a full range of staking services and advantages to cater to the needs of enterprises and investors, such as asset managers, company treasuries, exchanges, VCs and hedge funds, wallets, custodians, and liquid staking services.

• Institutional grade SLAs with 99.5%+ uptime guarantees and slashing guarantees

• A dedicated Account Manager to answer all your technical and commercial questions

• 24/7 monitoring and alerting with a private dashboard for dedicated and Whitelabel nodes