Babylon: Self-Custodial Bitcoin Native Staking & Bitcoin-Secured Networks - David Tse. Ep. 582
Throughout the years, there were many attempts of tapping into Bitcoin’s liquidity and security, but almost all of them came with different caveats. Most notably, wrapped BTC (wBTC) depended on the wrapper contract security. However, the recent surge in research and development for native solutions has led to breakthroughs previously thought impossible. Babylon launched native BTC staking and plans to further expand this to secure other blockchains, in a model similar to that of mesh security. This would not only help secure other networks, but it would also unlock liquidity from the mother chain through liquid staking derivatives.
Topics discussed in this episode:
0:00 - Introduction
3:07 - David’s background
6:34 - The evolution of Babylon
9:30 - The Bitcoin Renaissance
11:58 - Technical challenges of implementing Bitcoin staking
15:49 - The OP_CAT upgrade
20:55 - Babylon’s Bitcoin staking & Bitcoin-secured networks
27:39 - Bridging liquidity & LSTs
31:16 - Securing multiple chains and slashing
35:26 - Babylon chain - aggregating Bitcoin-secured networks
40:00 - Could Bitcoin become a POS chain?
44:57 - Babylon upgradeability
Links mentioned in this episode:
David Tse on X: https://bit.ly/3DPmIYc
Babylon on X: https://bit.ly/4ayZ1zX
Sponsors:
Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at https://gnosis.io/ -
Chorus One: Chorus One is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at https://chorus.one/?utm_source=epicenter -
This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sebastien Couture.
Show notes and listening options: https://epicenter.tv/582
#babylon #bitcoin #bitcoinstaking #btc