Stake bitcoin with Babylon and Kiln, enterprise-grade staking

Babylon

Edgar Roth, Protocol Specialist
August 20, 2024

* Gross Reward Rate (GRR) may change over time and vary depending on the open source blockchain protocol code. In addition, fees might be deducted from the gross effective rewards earned.

What is Babylon? 

Babylon aims to harness bitcoins to secure Proof-of-Stake chains and Decentralized Applications. It does so through innovative cryptographic technologies to bring staking to Bitcoin without involving any third parties.

With Babylon, Bitcoin holders can choose to stake their BTC to secure PoS chains and dApps to earn staking rewards from them, and those chains and apps can leverage this bitcoin-backed security.

Learn more about Babylon with David Tse’s keynote during Kiln Rendez-Vous '23:

Deep-dive into the BTC staking ecosystem through our detailed blog post.

How does Babylon actually enable bitcoin staking?

Babylon makes bitcoin staking possible by generating “EOTS”, which are one-time signatures to create spendable bitcoin transactions (UTXOs) associated with a Babylon node. If the node behaves dishonestly, the EOTS will be triggered, and the UTXO or a portion of it will be slashed as a penalty.



Thanks to this specific architecture, there is no need for a third party and to bridge BTC assets to another chain, and bitcoin holders can generate staking rewards from their assets, without leaving the Bitcoin chain.

Watch the Kiln Rendez-Vous talk at EthCC '24 with Botanix, CoreDao and Babylon to learn more about bitcoin staking:

What are the rewards associated with staking BTC?

As an incentive for helping to safeguard the network, you can get rewarded depending on the PoS blockchains you opt-in to support. The more protocols supported, the higher the GRR will be, but also the risk!

Rewards will be issued in the native asset of the protocols you opt-in to secure (i.e. NTRN on Neutron).

You can stake your BTC as well as other digital assets to:
  • 1
    Put your treasury to work
  • 2
    Diversify and earn, while contributing to blockchains decentralization
  • 3
    Bring new opportunities by enabling your users to earn staking rewards

Why should you stake your BTC with Kiln?

Kiln is the leading enterprise-grade staking platform, enabling institutional customers to stake BTC, and to whitelabel BTC staking functionality into their offering. Our platform is API-first and enables fully automated validators, rewards, data, and commission management.

Our clients can stake their tokens from our dashboard, a hardware wallet, a browser wallet, a B2B custodian, a crypto exchange, or just their favorite investment app. Kiln makes staking BTC easy, secure, and accessible to everyone.

Kiln has been closely working with Babylon to make sure we provide the best bitcoin staking experience as possible.

We are serving thousands of businesses worldwide so that everyone can securely and seamlessly:

  • Excellent track record in staking on 30+ protocols, managing more than $6b in stakes.
  • Trusted by industry leaders such as Ledger, Lido, Coinbase Cloud, Bitpanda, Crypto.com and many more!
  • Non-custodial, work with your existing custodians solutions e.g.Ledger, Fireblocks
  • SOC 2 Type II certified and Industry leading SLAs (0 penalties recorded and 99.95% effective uptime)

Why should you stake your BTC with Kiln?

Kiln is the leading enterprise-grade staking platform, enabling institutional customers to stake BTC, and to whitelabel BTC staking functionality into their offering. Our platform is API-first and enables fully automated validators, rewards, data, and commission management.

Our clients can stake their tokens from our dashboard, a hardware wallet, a browser wallet, a B2B custodian, a crypto exchange, or just their favorite investment app. Kiln makes staking BTC easy, secure, and accessible to everyone.

Kiln has been closely working with Babylon to make sure we provide the best bitcoin staking experience as possible.

We are serving thousands of businesses worldwide so that everyone can securely and seamlessly:

  • Excellent track record in staking on 30+ protocols, managing more than $6b in stakes.
  • Trusted by industry leaders such as Ledger, Lido, Coinbase Cloud, Bitpanda, Crypto.com and many more!
  • Non-custodial, work with your existing custodians solutions e.g.Ledger, Fireblocks
  • SOC 2 Type II certified and Industry leading SLAs (0 penalties recorded and 99.95% effective uptime)

Protocol Card

Token
BTC
GRR
TBC%
Number of live validators
100,000 (testnet)
Consensus
DPoS
Edgar Roth, Protocol Specialist
August 20, 2024

* Gross Reward Rate (GRR) may change over time and vary depending on the open source blockchain protocol code. In addition, fees might be deducted from the gross effective rewards earned.

Babylon FAQ

What does Proof-of Stake mean?

Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a type of consensus mechanism used to validate cryptocurrency transactions. Through PoS, validators can contribute to the block production of a chain while keeping environmental concerns to a minimum, which is becoming an increasingly large issue in Proof-of-Work.

By staking capital rather than energy, validators risk losing a portion of their value and future potential for staking by misbehaving while creating blocks. This incentives collaboration and fair practices while validating information in a similar way that PoW has with incentives and punishments to curtail malicious.

Does interest compound when staking BTC?

No, the interest doesn’t compound when staking BTC.

Is there a minimum and maximum amount to stake for BTC?

There is no minimum stake amount.

Do I maintain custody of my BTC tokens? Is BTC staking non-custodial?

While you may maintain self-custody of your staked BTC (ideally using a Ledger hardware wallet), you may also choose a third-party custodian to control the withdrawal of your staked BTC (i.e. Fireblocks).

What is the lockup period to stake BTC? When can I unstake and withdraw my BTC?

Stakers must stake for a minimum of 21 days before being able to withdraw staked tokens.

What is the average block time on Bitcoin?

The average block time is 10 minutes on Bitcoin.

What is a Gross Reward Rate (GRR) and how is it different from a Net Reward Rate (NRR)?

In the context of Proof-of-Stake blockchains, the gross reward rate (GRR) refers to the total or gross amount of rewards earned from staking before deducting any fees or expenses. This is a reward rate that fluctuates with the operations of the protocol and the performance of validators, it is not set by Kiln. The net reward rate (NRR), on the other hand, takes into account the deductions or expenses, providing a measure of the actual rewards received after subtracting fees or costs.

Where can I learn more about Babylon?

You can learn more about Babylon on their official documentation and on the Babylon website.