Meet the Wild and Wondrous World of Bitcoin: Babylon Genesis Takes Off! 🚀

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In a marvelous twist worthy of a fantastic tale, Babylon Labs has jubilantly unfurled the banner for Babylon Genesis, the first-ever Layer-1 blockchain snugly wrapped in the magical embrace of Bitcoin! 🥳

Why this ruckus, you ask? Well, it seems Babylon Labs (or should we say, BABY!) has unveiled their wondrous creation with the flair of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. Following their Phase 1 rollout back in the splendid summer of August 2024, which allowed folks to stake their Bitcoin (BTC) through the miracle of self-custodial contracts, the protocol has been swimming in a pool of funds! We’re talking about a dazzling 49,678.65 BTC (or a whopping $4.06B) gleefully staked in those very contracts. According to the pint-sized wizards over at DefiLlama, Babylon is now the second-largest fish in the Total Value Locked sea of restaking protocols, right behind EigenLayer! 🐠

Now, hold on to your hats and glasses, because with today’s grand opening, we leap into the fanciful Phase 2! This enchanting stage unveils the complete Genesis blockchain, while also calling forth the mighty validator nodes and those splendid finality providers. And lo and behold, the shiny BABY token is ready for a joyous dance of transfers and staking! 💃🏽

If you’ve been a good little crypto critter, you’ll soon find BABY tokens raining down upon you from the sky—well, actually, from your wallets! Yes, transferring and staking these delightful tokens is available right from day one. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any more riveting, Phase 3 will cast an intriguing spell, introducing new Bitcoin-Secured Networks and freeing up those juicy BTC staking opportunities across other blockchains via Babylon Genesis Layer-1. 🪄

But what makes Babylon so entertaining, you ask? Well, it’s not just any old stake; it’s the unique way it allows users to cradle their Bitcoins in self-custodial contracts whilst still maintaining full ownership! No need to hand your treasures over to a cryptic smart contract or a custodian of questionable repute. Instead, users hold the keys to their financial castles! If any naughty validator or finality provider misbehaves, their staked BTC can face a cheerful little “slash” (a light penalty), akin to the critters of Proof-of-Stake blockchains. 😜

“Bitcoin OGs really care about custodying [their] own keys, having control over [their] own financial decisions,” chuckled Spencer Yang, co-founder of Fractal Bitcoin, during one of his many whimsical interviews.

Now, as we peer into the shimmering crystal ball, a shiny new feature beckons: a trust-minimized bridge between Bitcoin and Genesis, conjured up cleverly as BitVM2! This ingenious contraption will let BTC frolic freely into the Babylon ecosystem, no pesky multisig setups required, simply relying on slashing and some fancy cryptographic wizardry to ensure everyone behaves themselves. 🎩✨

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2025-04-10 16:32