Bi-Weekly Babylon Digest (19 June)

June 6 - June 19, 2025

Welcome back 👋 to our bi-weekly roundup of all things  Babylon. This cycle marks a major step forward. With Genesis v2 now live, core infrastructure updates rolling out, and the release of a foundational new blog post on the future of BTCFi, Babylon is continuing to build momentum across protocol, product, and the broader ecosystem.

🌍 Native BTC Staking Comes to Kraken

Kraken integrates Babylon Genesis for native Bitcoin staking

This week, Kraken announced support for native Bitcoin staking through an integration with Babylon Genesis, marking one of the most significant BTCFi milestones to date.

Through this collaboration, Kraken users will be able to stake native BTC without bridges, wrapped tokens, or giving up custody. This brings the Babylon Bitcoin staking protocol’s trustless staking to one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges and expands access to secure rewards.

The integration reflects growing momentum for BTCFi and highlights Babylon Genesis as the critical infrastructure for unlocking new Bitcoin utility across the crypto landscape.

📖 Bitcoin’s Next Chapter with Babylon

“Bitcoin is Idle. Cryptocurrencies are Isolated. Babylon Fixes Both.”

This week, Babylon Labs published a major article outlining its long-term vision for BTCFi and how the Babylon protocols are connecting Bitcoin’s capital to the innovation happening across other chains.

The post breaks down Babylon’s architecture into three key layers:

• Staking Layer: Trustless BTC staking that earns rewards across multiple BSNs. Multi-staking is on the way, letting BTC holders earn from several networks using a single position.
• Liquidity Layer: Future BitVM-powered synthetic BTC products that can move freely across DeFi without wrapping or custodians
• Execution Layer: Babylon Genesis as the coordination and application layer for BTCFi. Support for both CosmWasm and EVM is coming later this year to unlock seamless developer access and cross-environment interoperability.

This piece sets the direction for where Bitcoin and BTCFi are heading.

📖 Read the full post here

🛠️ Tech in Motion: Protocol Updates

Babylon Genesis V2 is now live on mainnet, marking a major for the network’s decentralization, resilience, and scalability.

This "Builders Upgrade" introduces enhancements focused on composability, flexibility, and security:

• TokenFactory: Enables permissionless creation and management of native tokens via the bank module (i.e. no governance needed).
• IBC Callbacks: Allows IBC packets to carry executable logic, enabling advanced workflows like atomic cross-chain swaps.
• Packet Forwarding Middleware (PFM): Supports seamless multi-hop IBC transfers, letting users transact across multiple chains in a single transaction.
• IBC Rate Limiting: Adds protection by capping $BABY outflows to 10% of native supply within 24 hours to defend against large-scale drains.
• Interchain Accounts (ICA): Lets other chains control Babylon accounts programmatically for tasks like staking, delegation, and governance.

You can read the v2 upgrade breakdown in full here.

🎙️ Babylon Genesis on Air: AMAs, X Spaces, and More

Fisher Yu joined @SuiNetwork to discuss the value of BTCfi and how Babylon Genesis is expanding Bitcoin utility within the Sui ecosystem here.

Babylon Labs was featured in CoinDesk where @Borissimo_ shared his thoughts on Bitcoin’s current market dynamics and long-term institutional trends.

Babylon Labs’s Head of Ecosystem, Clayton Menzel, joined the Crypto Coin Show to talk through how native BTC staking works on Babylon, its non-custodial model, and how it compares to other protocols like EigenLayer.

🤝 Ecosystem Momentum: Updates and Progress

Band Protocol is now live on Babylon Genesis testnet, delivering real-time price feeds.

BTCFi Builder Thread detailed recent development upgrades designed to strengthen Babylon Genesis V2 as a modular, scalable base for BTCFi. Highlights included:

• TokenFactory, enabling native token creation without deploying custom contracts
• IBC Callbacks and Packet Forwarding Middleware, which improve cross-chain messaging and modular chain interactions
• Rate limiting features to support safer interchain communication
• Interchain accounts, allowing Babylon Genesis to interact more efficiently with other IBC-enabled chains

These updates improve developer experience and position Babylon Genesis as the execution layer where Bitcoin-backed DeFi can scale.

Babylon Genesis v2 received audits from Informal Systems and Oak Security confirmed protocol stability ahead of Phase-3.

🐉 Babylon Intern Takes the Mic

Sometimes the best way to test decentralization is to hand the account to the intern.

This week, our intern made their debut on Babylon’s main X account. The only instruction was: “Don’t go full degen.” Within minutes, a GIF was posted. No context. No caption. Just vibes.

The community noticed. So did management.

Consider this a friendly reminder that at Babylon Labs, even the interns believe Bitcoin deserves better.

🔭 Looking Ahead

With Genesis v2 complete and security audits behind us, the team is now focused on shipping the next major milestones. Multi-staking is on the horizon, giving BTC holders the ability to earn rewards from multiple networks using a single stake.

Work is also progressing on EVM support, which will bring full compatibility with Ethereum-based tools and expand what developers can build on Babylon Genesis.

More updates are coming soon as Babylon moves toward Phase-3.

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