Binance Labs invests in Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon

Binance Labs, the $10 billion venture capital and incubation arm of crypto exchange Binance, has invested in Babylon, a Bitcoin BTC

+6.34%
staking protocol, as it continues to show interest in startups in the staking and resting domains.

Binance Labs did not disclose the size of its investment, but Babylon co-founder David Tse told The Block that the investment had the same structure as Babylon’s Seed and Series A rounds, which were stocks with token warrant rounds. Babylon raised $18 million in Series A funding in December 2023 and $8.8 million in seed funding in 2022.

Binance Labs has recently increased its focus on supporting startups in the staking and reinstatement verticals. In recent weeks, Binance Labs has invested in Renzo and Puffer Finance, which have quickly become the second and fourth largest liquid withdrawal protocols in Ethereum, according to DeFiLlama. facts.

Binance Labs’ investment in Babylon comes as the protocol is set to launch its testnet this week, Tse said.

What is Babylon?

Babylon is a Bitcoin staking protocol that allows BTC holders to stake their coins on proof-of-stake blockchains and earn rewards. The protocol will essentially help BTC become a major player in PoS networks, using its security to make PoS chains more secure. Currently, PoS chains rely on their own tokens for security, which can be expensive, especially for newer chains that often need to offer high stake rewards to raise capital.

An example of this is the Cosmos Hub ecosystem, which allows any application to have its own blockchain. Babylon is already working to support the Cosmos Hub ecosystem, as The Block previously reported.

“Bitcoin staking introduces a critical new use case for the industry and marks a significant step in Bitcoin’s integration with the Proof-of-Stake economy,” said Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, in a statement. . “Binance Labs’ investment in Babylon represents our commitment to supporting innovative projects that drive the Bitcoin story and advance its use cases.”

Babylon’s proprietary PoS chain, built using the Cosmos SDK, will be the first PoS chain secured by the protocol. It will then enable a marketplace where BTC holders can switch to other PoS networks via Babylon.

With the investment from Binance Labs, Babylon plans to hire more developers and aims to launch its mainnet phase one before the end of this year, Tse said.