Babylon Project Introduction

Babylon is a Layer 1 blockchain project founded by Stanford University professor David Tse, dedicated to promoting the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Through innovative protocol design, it combines the security of Bitcoin with PoS blockchain, activates the idle assets of the Bitcoin network, and promotes the prosperity of the BTC ecosystem. Its unique staking protocol provides new revenue streams for Bitcoin holders and enhances the security of the PoS network.

As a leader in the re-staking track, Babylon is reshaping the security model of the PoS chain. The project’s vision is to create higher capital efficiency for BTC assets, ultimately driving the entire crypto industry into a new stage of parallel development of ‘BTC security sharing + PoS capital efficiency’.

Babylon 项目标识（图源：https://medium.com/nodesforall/unlocking-Bitcoins-staking）

Babylon project advantages

Babylon aims to activate BTC assets and promote the prosperity of the BTC ecosystem as its core goal. For a long time, BTC holders have been reluctant to move their assets easily due to security considerations. Traditional cross-chain methods are limited by the Turing incompleteness of the BTC network, making it difficult to achieve secure asset circulation.

Babylon also utilizes an innovative self-custodial, trustless staking protocol that enables the secure staking of BTC assets without affecting the holder’s full control over their private keys. This protocol provides additional security for PoS networks. If a staker violates PoS rules, it will trigger a penalty directly on the BTC blockchain, ensuring that the unstaking and punishment processes are automatically executed according to the rules.

In addition, Babylon has powerful cross-chain security sharing capabilities, which can span BTC and multiple EVM ecosystems, providing a new level of security empowerment for the Cosmos ecosystem, not only increasing the utilization of BTC assets, but also benefiting the Cosmos ecosystem from the security sharing of Bitcoin.

Babylon’s cross-chain communication technology comes from Cosmos (Image source:https://www.gate.io/zh/learn/articles/babylon-airdrop-analysis)

Babylon Airdrop Time

The Babylon Airdrop registration will officially start at 08:00 UTC on February 25, 2025 and will continue until 08:00 UTC on March 15, 2025. During this period, eligible users can participate in the registration to ensure receiving the Airdrop rewards at the launch of Babylon Genesis.

The airdrop process requires users to create a BABY address and securely bind it to a Bitcoin wallet for staking, or complete registration through other qualifying activities. As the world’s first Bitcoin Security Network (BSN), Babylon Genesis not only provides Bitcoin-level security for the PoS ecosystem but also serves as the liquidity and security orchestration layer for the future BSN ecosystem.

Babylon mainnet evolution: three-stage roadmap (Image source:https://babylon.foundation/blogs/airdrop-registration-announcement)

Who can receive the Babylon Airdrop?

Babylon’s recent airdrop program covers multiple categories of users to recognize early contributors and incentivize further development of the ecosystem. The main types of users eligible for the airdrop include the following:

1. Phase 1 stakers: Users participating in the first phase of staking in Babylon, until the Cap 3 phase closes (corresponding to BTC block height 875087), including accepted staking and overflow staking users, are eligible for the Airdrop.

2. Bitcoin Staking Pioneer Pass holders: In order to reward early supporters, Babylon offers airdrop eligibility to users holding the Pioneer Pass NFT. The snapshot of the NFT holders was taken at 07:15 on February 24, 2025 UTC time.

3. The finality provider for Phase 1: Finality Providers registered on the official Babylon GitHub and delegated in Phase 1 will receive Airdrop rewards.

4. Eligible GitHub contributors: The Babylon program rewards developers who contribute to open source technologies in multiple areas, including Cosmos, Bitcoin, Ethereum, cryptography, zero-knowledge, BitVM, etc. The official has provided a list of GitHub code repositories eligible for airdrops, and has already taken a snapshot at 08:00 on February 23, 2025, UTC time.

(Note: For more detailed information about the Babylon airdrop, please refer to the official announcement: Babylon Airdrop Registration Announcement)

Babylon Airdrop Operation Steps

Babylon Airdrop registration has officially started, users can register through the Web or CLI interface, the specific steps are as follows:

A. Web registration process

Web users first create a BABY address according to the official guide, then visit the airdrop registration portalairdrop.babylon.foundationTo bind. During the registration process, you need to link the BABY address with the BTC address, Polygon address, or GitHub account. Please note that for ownership verification, the binding of BTC address and Polygon address also requires encrypted signature, while GitHub account does not require additional signature verification.

B. CLI registration process

CLI users can complete registration through the command line tool, first create a BABY address, generate an encrypted proof of rights, then bind the BABY address with BTC public key, Polygon address, or final provider public key, and then visit Babylon Airdrop APIInteract.

Conclusion

Babylon empowers the PoS ecosystem through Bitcoin PoW, offering an innovative solution for unlocking the liquidity of BTC assets. Its Bitcoin remote staking protocol allows BTC holders to maintain control over their assets while enhancing security for the PoS ecosystem. This airdrop initiative is not only a reward for early contributors but also an important step for Babylon toward widespread adoption. As more PoS networks establish deep collaborations with Babylon, the project is poised to become a core security bridge between Bitcoin and the PoS ecosystem, ushering in a new era of BTC staking.