Babylon Foundation (@bbn_foundation): The Evolution of Babylon: One Year After Network Launch

The Evolution of Babylon: One Year After Network Launch Dear Babylonians, It’s been almost a year since Babylon’s mainnet launch in April 2025. We’d like to take this opportunity to share our progress in building a programmable native Bitcoin collateral protocol: Trustless Bitcoin Vaults. Separately, we will also provide updates on BABY unlock schedules. Bitcoin Staking The vision of the Babylon project has always been extending the use cases of native Bitcoin while retaining its ethos of “don’t trust, verify”. We launched such a protocol in 2025: Trustless Bitcoin Staking. With Bitcoin staking, Babylon pioneered new BTCFi opportunities, and over the past 1.5 years it has enabled the activation of billions in TVL making Babylon the largest Bitcoin based project. We have demonstrated the value of trustless protocols to Bitcoin holders. From Trustless Bitcoin for Staking to Trustless Bitcoin for Everything Bitcoin staking is a trustless protocol using Bitcoin as collateral to secure a blockchain. But there is a much bigger place for Bitcoin collateral: the entire on-chain finance world, which is built on top of collateralization. So we asked the question: can we build a universal protocol that allows native Bitcoin to be used as collateral trustlessly in any DeFi application on any blockchain, without bridging or wrapping? If achieved, this will dramatically increase the use cases of Bitcoin. The technical barrier to solving this problem is a way to efficiently verify ZK proofs on Bitcoin, a long standing open problem. We made a breakthrough last year with the invention of BABE, a Bitcoin proof verification protocol that achieves 1000x less on-chain and off-chain costs than the current state-of-the-art. BABE is the foundation of the new Trustless Bitcoin Vaults protocol we are targeting to launch in the summer of 2026. Trustless Bitcoin Vaults Protocol Trustless Bitcoin Vaults protocol is a universal API on top of which any DeFi application can be built to utilize native Bitcoin as a collateral asset trustlessly. To bootstrap its adoption, on the DeFi side, we are developing an integration with Aave as the first application: native Bitcoin-backed borrowing. Other applications such as options DEX, credit cards, and on-chain risk cover protocols are also being researched. On the Bitcoin user side, we are working with Ledger, the most popular hardware wallet for Bitcoin holders, for native hardware wallet integration. The recent backing from a16z crypto bolsters strategic alignment to our evolved direction. Babylon is no longer just a staking or shared security project. We now aim at becoming the universal Bitcoin collateral API for on-chain finance. The end game: Like Nvidia owns “GPU” and Chainlink owns “Oracle”, Babylon owns “Bitcoin Collateral”. With our research and product breakthrough and with the strong partnerships we forged, we are fully committed to achieving this goal. The BABY Token and Unlocking The Trustless Bitcoin Vaults protocol should create network effects and hopefully unlock new utilities for the BABY token. We are ideating new tokenomics design proposals and incentive alignment mechanisms with a diverse group of ecosystem stakeholders. In connection with the upcoming protocol launch and in compliance with existing contractual commitments the Babylon Foundation will make an amendment to the original lockup schedule. This amendment removes the initial 10th April 2026 unlock of 12.5% of the locked tokens of former and current team members, private round investors, and advisors. Instead, the first unlock will happen on 10th May 2026, with 1/36th unlocked, followed by another 35 monthly unlocks of 1/36th each, ending in April 2029. Lastly, we would like to thank each one of you for your long-term support of the Babylon project. Without you, we would not have come so far. Kind regards, Babylon Foundation Legal Notice: This is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase any cryptoassets, and is not an offering, advertisement, solicitation, confirmation, statement or any financial promotion that can be construed as an invitation or inducement to engage in any investment activity or similar. You should not rely on the content herein for advice of any kind, including legal, investment, financial, tax, or other professional advice, and such content is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional. This document contains hypothetical, forward-looking, and projected figures, which are not guaranteed and are subject to change. Actual numbers may vary. Babylon Foundation and its affiliates (including Babylon Labs Limited) make no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the completeness, reliability, validity, or accuracy of this information. The content here may contain incorrect information and errors. You agree and acknowledge that any information contained herein is subject to change without notice. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained from Babylon Foundation or affiliates, will be construed to create any warranty or representation or an investment contract. All information in this document is provided on an “as is” basis without any representation or warranty of any kind. These materials are intended for informational purposes only and only as of the date stated above. Actual results (if any) may differ materially; milestones and timelines are also subject to technical, regulatory, treasury, and market constraints; there is no assurance any future feature or integration will be completed on the stated timetable or at all; nothing should be read as a statement about token price or investment return; and we undertake no obligation to update except as required by law. This document does not create or confirm any information rights or similar.