Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol raises $18 million in Series A round

Babylon, a project focused on using Bitcoin for staking, raised $18 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC. According to The Block.

Among other investors: Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, OKX Ventures and Symbolic Capital.

Co-founder David Tse noted that the round described as ‘stock warrants plus tokens’ began in late July and has only just concluded. In March, the project raised $8 million in seed funding.

Babylon enables users to stake BTC in systems using the Proof-of-Stake mechanism and earn income from it. In doing so, the protocol is designed to boost the security of other blockchains.

According to Tse, the project is already in talks with representatives of Cosmos Hub and Polygon.

“Babylon becomes a contributor to Polygon CDK and a broader ecosystem […]. The integration of Babylon’s solution into Polygon’s staking hub not only enhances the security of developing networks, but also eliminates the inflationary pressure inherent in traditional staking models,” said Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

The protocol launch is expected to coincide with the next Bitcoin halving, Tse said.

The funds will be used to expand the development team and grow the ecosystem.

As reported in November, venture investment in crypto companies rose by 179% from October—from $430 million to $1.2 billion.