Sui is integrating Bitcoin into its DeFi ecosystem by leveraging the Babylon bitcoin staking protocol.
This will help unlock Bitcoin’s $1.9 trillion USD worth of liquidity on Sui, allowing users to gain access to a range of DeFi opportunities, like lending and borrowing, while enjoying the security of Bitcoin.
Mysten Labs, the team behind Sui, chose to integrate Babylon staked BTC over wrapped Bitcoin solutions like wBTC or tBTC for several reasons:
Security: the Babylon trustless and non-custodial staking protocol provides security for user funds. Unlike wrapped BTC, which often rely on centralized custodians, Babylon users retain full control of their staked BTC.
Native bitcoin integration: Babylon enables the use of native bitcoin within the Sui ecosystem, eliminating the need for intermediaries or bridges.
Staking rewards: Users can earn additional staking rewards through Babylon, adding another layer of incentives for participants.
How the integration works
This integration involves minting liquid staking tokens on the Sui network, and works as follows:
Stake BTC on Babylon: Users stake their bitcoin through the Babylon bitcoin staking protocol.
Receive liquid staking tokens (LST): In return, they LSTs on the Sui network that represents their staked Bitcoin.
Use in the Sui ecosystem: The tokens can be used in various DeFi protocols on Sui, such as lending, borrowing, and providing liquidity on DEX pools and trade for other Sui tokens.
Cubist, a leading infrastructure provider, will provide the infrastructure for secure key management, deposits, minting, staking, and bridging of Bitcoin to Sui.
Looking Ahead
Sui’s current fully diluted valuation of $36 billion and a market cap of $10 billion make it a leading platform in the crypto space. Over the past 30 days, the total TVL on Sui increased by 80%, showcasing the user excitement for the blockchain.
Leading Sui DeFi protocols, such as NAVI protocol ($430 million TVL) and Aftermath ($280 million TVL), are already preparing to integrate the Babylon LSTs, offering lending and borrowing pools for this new asset. This demonstrates the strong community support and anticipation for Bitcoin's arrival on Sui.
This integration helps Babylon’s mission of unlocking 21 million bitcoins and securing the decentralized economy. Further, by leveraging Babylon bitcoin staking, Sui is helping lead the future of DeFi.
More about Sui
Sui is a first-of-its-kind Layer 1 blockchain and smart contract platform designed from the bottom up to make digital asset ownership fast, private, secure, and accessible to everyone. Its object-centric model, based on the Move programming language, enables parallel execution, sub-second finality, and rich on-chain assets. With horizontally scalable processing and storage, Sui supports a wide range of applications with unrivaled speed at low cost. Sui is a step-function advancement in blockchain and a platform on which creators and developers can build amazing, user-friendly experiences. Learn more: https://sui.io
More about Babylon
Babylon is a project that focuses on Bitcoin security sharing protocols with a vision of building a Bitcoin-secured decentralized world. Its latest development is the world’s first trustless and self-custodial Bitcoin staking protocol, which enables Bitcoin holders to stake their BTC on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems such as PoS chains, L2s, Data Availability (DA) layers, etc, enabling them to earn staking rewards without the need for third-party custody, bridge solutions, or wrapping services. Babylon combines the high security and wide adoption of Bitcoin with the efficiency and scalability of PoS systems, increasing Bitcoin's utility.
Babylon was founded in 2022 by Stanford Professor David Tse and Dr. Fisher Yu. Professor Tse is a member of the U.S. Academy of Engineering and is renowned as the inventor of the legendary proportional-fair scheduling algorithm for wireless communications. Babylon is led by a team of consensus protocol researchers and experienced layer 1 engineers from around the world.
For more information about Babylon Labs, a developer of the Babylon Bitcoin staking protocol, please visit:
