BABY Surges 25% After Top Bitcoin DeFi Protocol Babylon Launches L1

Leading Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon launched its Layer 1 (L1) mainnet, Genesis, on Thursday, April 10. The same day, the protocol revealed that it was integrating with Axelar, a popular blockchain interoperability platform, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.

Babylon currently has over $4 billion in its Bitcoin staking protocol. The blockchain first launched in August 2024 in the first phase of its planned rollout.

The price of BABY — Babylon Genesis’s native asset — has surged over 20% since the launch on Thursday, and is currently trading around $0.14, up over 25% on the day, according to CoinGecko data.

The partnership with Axelar connects Babylon’s self-custodial Bitcoin staking ecosystem with more than 70 other blockchain networks, the release states.

Bitcoin holders stake their BTC directly on Babylon to earn yield, without bridging or giving up custody. BTC stakers get rewarded in BABY, which is used for gas and to secure the Babylon Genesis network via staking (alongside BTC). BABY also functions as a governance token to vote on protocol-related decisions.

In an interview with The Defiant, David Tse, co-founder of the Babylon protocol, explained the significance of native Bitcoin staking in the wider context of crypto.

“Bitcoin is basically 60% of the market cap of crypto, and 30%-40% is proof of stake chains,” Tse said, continuing: “Before this project, the two were essentially completely isolated. What Bitcoin staking allows is that 60% now enters the staking market, but using Bitcoin as a staking asset.”

Axelar brings web3 interoperability

Axelar is a general message-passing protocol designed to facilitate interoperability between blockchain networks. Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of the Axelar protocol and CEO of Interop Labs, a core contributor to Axelar, explained to The Defiant how the protocol simplifies the notoriously clunky process of cross-chain bridging, moving assets between blockchain ecosystems.

Referring to the multi-step process of going from holding wrapped Bitcoin to staking BTC on Babylon, Gorbunov stated: “Because we support this very expressive cross-chain logic in the messages themselves, you can write a transaction that automates all of these steps on behalf of the user.”

Axelar currently has a total value locked (TVL) of about $928 million, according to Flipside data. The protocol’s blockchain explorer shows a total cross-chain trading volume of almost $11.2 billion.

Axelar has raised a total of $93.7 million in multiple funding rounds since its seed raise in 2020, with participation from web3 venture giants Arrington Capital, WAGMI Ventures, Polychain, Galaxy and Dragongly, among others. The protocol raised $30 million in its most recent Series B last month.