A crypto startup seeking to use Babylon, which is aiming to do something never accomplished before, secured the cash from lead investor Paradigm, a prominent crypto venture capital firm. Other contributions came from Bullish Capital and Polychain Capital. The startup wants to use Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, as a resource for staking. Previously, the firm told “This funding will accelerate our mission to make Bitcoin the security backbone of proof-of-stake systems,” Babylon founder David Tse Currently, Bitcoin runs on a very different system to staking protocols because it uses a system called proof-of-work. Proof-of-work requires lots of computing power—in the form of miners—to process transactions. It’s an expensive and energy intensive process. But with Babylon wants those holding Bitcoin to be able to earn a yield by pledging their coins to staking networks. It’s a bold challenge, but the startup—led by a Stanford professor and a former Dolby engineer—says it has found a way. Last year, it raised $18 million from investors. If it does achieve what it wants, those sitting on satoshis (aka the smallest denomination of Bitcoin) will soon be able to earn yield.“Babylon will be the catalyst that redefines the utility of BTC and paves the way for a new era of Bitcoin-native applications,” said Luke Pearson, General Partner at Polychain Capital, in a release. Edited by Andrew Hayward
