Babylon raises $70M to make Bitcoin the security backbone of PoS

Bitcoin Builders continue to attract venture capital funding

Hi Bitcoin Builders,

Welcome to another week of the Bitcoin Builders Association newsletter. This week, Babylon announced that they raised $70M, led by Paradigm.

This funding round serves to prepare Babylon for its upcoming mainnet launch.

Babylon aims to make Bitcoin the security backbone of Proof of Stake systems by introducing its Bitcoin Staking Protocol. The protocol enables Bitcoin to secure decentralized systems through trustless, self-custodial staking.

Per the Babylon litepaper, the protocol will allow, “bitcoin holders to trustlessly stake their bitcoins without bridging them to the PoS chain but yet provides the chain with full slashable security guarantees.”

The protocol offers the following security guarantees per the docs:

• Fully Slashable PoS Security

• Staker Security

• Staker Liquidity

The funding round highlights the continued support of VCs in supporting Bitcoin builders.

Layers

• The Bitcoin L2 TVL wars are heating up. Jacob Brown notes that players include Stacks and Rootstock, along with Merlin, Bitlayer, BOB, and MAP Protocol.

• Core DAO proposes an initiative to expand the validator set on Core Chain from 21 to 31 validators by Q2 2025.

• The Bitcoin Builders Conference in Nashville is scheduled for July 25-26. Follow on Twitter for updates.

Meta Protocols and L1

• Halving Post Mortem: Bitcoin Magazine analyses the latest Q1-2024 Hashrate Index Report by Luxor Technology.

  • “The Runes hype was short-lived, and hashprice soon plunged to a record low of $44/PH/day before stabilizing at its current level of $50/PH/day.”

  • The Bitcoin mining industry is adapting to the reality of the 3.125 BTC block subsidy world.

Other:

• Mastercard launches the Crypto Credential, which allows users to send and receive crypto using a username instead of a wallet address. Traditional finance players are slowly adapting to the reality that Bitcoin and crypto are here to stay.

• More companies are buying Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset and following the MicroStrategy playbook — public healthcare company Semler Scientific purchases 581 bitcoins for about $40 million.

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Thanks for reading!

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