Bitcoin Staking Platform Babylon to Start Phased Mainnet Launch This Week

Bitcoin (BTC) staking platform Babylon, led by a Stanford University professor and tipped to be one of the more promising new scaling projects for the oldest and largest blockchain, is moving to the next stage of its development, with plans to launch the first phase of its main network on Aug. 22.
Babylon raised a $70 million funding round led by Paradigm earlier this year. The project is led by Stanford engineering professor David Tse, known for his prior research on information theory while working at University of California, Berkeley.
During the first phase, BTC holders will be able to lock their tokens on the Bitcoin network, according to an emailed release on Monday. For security purposes, Babylon is imposing an cap of 1,000 BTC ($57.9 million) that users can stake in total.
Staking refers to process of crypto holders offering their tokens to a network in order to finance its ongoing operation with the expectation of getting rewards in return, similar to putting money in a savings account to acquire interest. This system is fundamental to most blockchains, but Bitcoin is not one of them, therefore staking is largely absent from the world’s largest cryptocurrency network.
Babylon is attempting to address this difference in the coming months, which will add greater utility to Bitcoin.
The project is being supported by over 200 “finality providers,” who will approve transactions to maintain the network’s protocol’s operation, similar to the role of validators in proof-of-stake ecosystems.
Allnodes, Figment and Galaxy Digital are among the finality providers, according to the release.
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Edited by Parikshit Mishra.

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Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.