Nomic Launches Babylon Bitcoin Staking Smart Contract on Ethereum

Bedrock's uniBTC to Integrate Contract, Enabling Decentralized Babylon Bitcoin Staking

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, Oct. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nomic DAO Foundation today announced the launch of Nomic's Babylon Bitcoin Staking Smart Contract on Ethereum, introducing a trust-minimized, decentralized custody solution for Bitcoin staking with Babylon. By leveraging Nomic's decentralized custody engine, Bitcoin holders and protocols can now stake their BTC on Ethereum via Babylon's Bitcoin Staking protocol without relying on centralized custodians. Among the first will be Bedrock's uniBTC, one of the leading Babylon Bitcoin liquid staking tokens (LST) with over 2,000 BTC staked.

Babylon is a pioneering blockchain project whose signature Bitcoin staking solution enables BTC to be utilized to secure proof-of-stake blockchains to earn yield. As a trustless solution, the staked BTC on Babylon remains in the owners' custody and can be unbonded by them at any time, meaning that projects building liquid staking on top of the Babylon protocol must be built on a custody solution.

Current solutions utilize centralized custodians, resulting in stakers having to sacrifice the permissionless and decentralized nature of their Bitcoin. Nomic now enables any user or protocol to leverage its decentralized custody engine and stake BTC via Babylon in a trust-minimized way.

With this integration, any Bitcoin layer-2 network, LST, or protocol on Ethereum will now be able to interface with Babylon with a simple smart contract call, offering protocols the ability to stake BTC with Babylon that is held in a decentralized manner. Having enabled seamless BTC on-and-off-ramping into Ethereum in a previous upgrade, Nomic provides an end-to-end solution for building Babylon protocols on Ethereum. 

Bedrock, a leading multi-asset liquid restaking protocol, will be one of the first Bitcoin DeFi projects to integrate Nomic's Babylon staking contract. This allows users to stake BTC in Nomic's decentralized custody via Babylon, enabling them to earn yield while retaining their assets' liquidity. As a result, uniBTC will become one of the first Bitcoin LSTs to progress towards true decentralization and not be fully reliant on centralized custodians. DeFiLlama reports that uniBTC has over $100 million in TVL.

"The rapidly-growing Bitcoin staking ecosystem is a key space to watch in crypto right now. Projects built on Babylon currently resort to using centralized custodians as a temporary measure, but it is important that the ecosystem grows beyond this." said Matt Bell, CEO of Turbofish, Nomic's founders and core contributors. "Now, for the first time, DeFi protocols on Ethereum can directly stake BTC in a truly decentralized way via Nomic."

Clayton Menzel, Head of BD at Babylon, added that "Nomic's integration of the Babylon Bitcoin Staking protocol enables trust-minimized Bitcoin staking on Ethereum. This empowers Bitcoin holders to participate in DeFi without compromising on security or decentralization."

"This collaboration between Nomic and Bedrock will offer users a truly decentralized, trust-minimized way to stake their BTC with Babylon while maintaining liquidity. We're thrilled for uniBTC to be the first to take this important step towards decentralization, said Zhuling Chen, CEO of RockX, Bedrock's founders and core contributors.

Nomic's Babylon Bitcoin Staking Smart Contract is active on Ethereum testnet and will launch on mainnet in advance of Babylon's Phase-1 Cap-3 increase, and will be launching on additional EVM chains in the coming months.

To learn more, visit nomic.io.

About the Nomic DAO Foundation
The Nomic DAO Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to the growth and integration of the Nomic ecosystem. The Foundation supports the goals and objectives of the Nomic DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), is the initial steward of the Nomic blockchain, and will support and grow the Nomic DAO until it becomes self-sufficient.