Today, we are excited to announce the successful launch of the world’s first trustless Bitcoin staking testnet. For the first time ever, a significant utility of Bitcoin besides store of value and a means of payment has been created. Bitcoin has now become the largest staking asset in the expansive proof-of-stake (PoS) world. This launch marks an important step towards the vision of the Babylon project and many believers of decentralization: a Bitcoin-secured decentralized world.

Trustless Bitcoin Staking

By staking their Bitcoins, Bitcoin holders contribute to the crypto-economic security of PoS systems and can earn rewards for the security they provide. Thus, for the first time, HODLing AND earning becomes possible for Bitcoin holders. Babylon’s Bitcoin protocol is trustless: It does not require any Bitcoin bridging, wrapping, third-party custody, altcoin collateral, or oracle. Therefore, the protocol is free from associated counterparty risks.

Since publishing the Bitcoin staking litepaper in July 2023, the Babylon team has been developing this protocol in close collaboration with Bitcoin core developers, cryptographers, validator teams, and wallet teams. We can’t wait to share our progress with you through this testnet.

What’s in This Testnet

1. Bitcoin staking. Babylon PoS chain will be the first PoS chain it secures.
2. Common PoS features, such as stake delegation, on-demand unstaking, and partial slashing, are all supported. In the future, the Babylon PoS chain will serve as the control plane and marketplace for Bitcoin restaking onto other PoS chains.
3. A Bitcoin staking web application that allows non-technical people to experience Bitcoin staking.
4. It serves as a reference implementation for Bitcoins staking service providers.
5. Bitcoin timestamping. Available to any IBC-compatible chain (inter-blockchain communication) and any Dapps built on Babylon PoS chain.
6. This service is a cross-chain time-synchronization primitive needed for secure Bitcoin restaking. It can also protect PoS systems from long-range attacks and can reduce their native stake unbonding time from weeks to one day.
7. CosmWasm runtime. DApps and rollups can be built on Babylon using Wasm smart contracts and enjoy fully Bitcoin security.

This testnet is built on the default Bitcoin Signet rather than the Bitcoin mainnet, so that no real Bitcoin will be at stake. Specified in BIP-325, a Bitcoin Signet emulates the Bitcoin mainnet for testing purpose. We use the default Signet maintained by Bitcoin core developers, which contains all the mainnet features.

Being the first of its kind, we caution that this testnet is experimental, unstable, and unincentivised. We are undergoing rigid security audits and will roll out more stable testnets in a few months to prepare for our mainnet launch.

We believe it presents a valuable opportunity for learning and staying ahead in this new era of decentralized finance. Join us in exploring the fascinating paradigm shift enabled by Bitcoin staking, as the Babylon team sees ourselves as early contributors to this emerging Bitcoin ecosystem. Early Bitcoin stakers of this testnet will have the chance to win a Bitcoin Staking Pioneer Pass NFT — a commemorate collection that recognises your pioneering participation of this brand-new technology.

How to Participate

We have open-sourced the code and have made the testnet permissionless, so that anyone can participate at any capacity, such as stakers, validators, staking service providers, developers, etc.

Bitcoin Stakers

• Through our test Bitcoin staking web application
• Through your own infra: follow the instructions.
• To claim your Pioneer Pass NFT: visit our Bitcoin pioneer pass page. Limited time and number only!

Validators

Follow the instructions at Bitcoin Staking Testnet | Babylon Blockchain to become a CometBFT validator and/or a Bitcoin-backed finality provider. We recommend try out both.
We are also working with validators on Bitcoin LST. For collaborations, please contact the team.

Wallets

Please check out our reference implementations and the code. Then there are two ways to participate:

• For browser wallets: add support to Bitcoin Signet and Babylon testnet so that they can be used as the signing device for any Bitcoin staking web application.
• For wallet apps: add Bitcoin staking as a new feature to your app, so that you have full control of your user’s staking experience.

We are working on a Bitcoin staking TypeScript library, too.

Ecosystem Projects

We are humbled by the number of projects reaching out to us for collaboration and integration, including PoS chains, rollups, Bitcoin L2s, and DA projects. We are committed to working closely with them and building a vibrant Bitcoin staking ecosystem together. Please contact us for collaborations.

Developers

Please check our our toy example about developing and deploying a CosmWasm smart contract on Babylon and enjoy Bitcoin security.
Join our forum to share your ideas.
We will roll out hackathons and developer grants. Please stay tuned!

Bug reports

Please follow our responsible bug reporting instructions.

Contact us

• We invite you to share your experience and feedback in our dedicated thread on our forum. Your insights are valuable to us and will help us understand your experience with Bitcoin staking on our Testnet.
• For integrations, collaborations and partnerships, please contact contact@babylonchain.io

We are excited to go on this journey with you all.

Acknowledgement

The Babylon team thanks Robin Linus (ZeroSync) and Orfeas Stefanos Thyfronitis Litos (Common Prefix and Imperial College London) for their instrumental contributions to the design of the staking contract, which won’t be possible without their deep knowledge on BTC scripts and cryptography.

We also highly appreciate the OKX Wallet team for adding BTC Testnet and Signet support to OKX Wallet’s browser extension. Kudos to DG Lab, too, for hosting the Signet faucet. Without their support we won’t be able to offer user-friendly staking web application to the community.

Last but not the least, the 60 validators who have participated in the internal testing and bootstrapping of this Bitcoin staking testnet. Some of them have been supporting Babylon from day one.