There's Now $3.6 Billion Worth of Bitcoin Deposited on Babylon Chain

2024-12-14 09:54:24 Primitive Reading

From decrypt by Adrian Zmudzinski

Bitcoin stack. Image: Created by Decrypt using AI

Babylon Chain, the middleware blockchain securing Cosmos-based chains with Bitcoin, just broke $3 billion worth of deposits.

Babylon has seen deposits totaling over 36,100 BTC, worth more than $3.63 billion, as of press time, according to Dune data. The assets were delivered by nearly 88,000 unique depositors. And in the past week, the amount of Bitcoin being deposited jumped by nearly 51.4%.

With nearly $350 million deposited on Dec. 11 and $834 million deposited on Dec. 10, Babylon Chain saw $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin deposits in 48 hours. Unique depositors also jumped from about 48,000 on Dec. 10 to 62,230 on Dec. 11, adding about 14,250 users in just a day.

This follows an early October report indicating that at the time Bitcoin holders had locked up about 23,000 BTC worth about $1.4 billion on Babylon Chain. The project established a marketplace connecting users looking to lock up their Bitcoin in exchange for rewards with proof-of-stake networks looking for valuable assets to secure their networks.

Babylon Chain is a protocol that attempts to integrate Bitcoin’s security features—its Proof-of-Work time stamping, asset liquidity, and censorship-resistant block space—into other blockchain ecosystems.

Through its Bitcoin security-sharing protocols, Babylon claims to enable decentralized networks to inherit Bitcoin’s robust security, creating a more secure and trust-minimized foundation for proof-of-stake chains and other decentralized applications.

The sudden jump in deposits follows the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance rolling out support for yield-generation through Babylon Chain on Dec. 9. Similarly, competing platform Bitrue also added support for the network on the same day.

Bitrue research team lead Andri Fauzan Adziima told Decrypt that the exchange decided to integrate Babylon Chain because it turns Bitcoin “from just a store of value into something that actively supports blockchain security.”

He also said that Bitrue plans to leverage “Babylon Chain’s Bitcoin-backed security model to build trust, increase activity on the platform, and attract institutional investors.”

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