pSTAKE unveils bitcoin liquid staking solution in collaboration with Babylon

Binance Labs-backed pSTAKE has unveiled what's described as a bitcoin liquid staking solution in collaboration with Babylon.

The multichain liquid staking protocol, developed by Persistence, currently offers solutions on BNB Chain, Cosmos, dYdX and Osmosis, with its latest service being built on top of Babylon’s staking protocol, according to a statement shared with The Block.

Similar to Lido on Ethereum or Jito on Solana, pSTAKE users can stake assets to receive liquid staking tokens in return, which can then be used elsewhere in decentralized finance to potentially generate additional yield.

The move comes amid increasing developer and venture capital activity in the Bitcoin ecosystem following the success of Ordinals, including Bitcoin Layer 2 and shared security solutions, opening the door for using bitcoin as a yield-bearing asset.

“Bitcoin’s future has never been so exciting, with simple BTC-first financial products anticipated to bring much-needed liquidity and utility to today’s DeFi landscape,” Mikhil Pandey, co-founder and CSO of pSTAKE developer Persistence Labs said. 

Babylon’s rising influence in bitcoin staking

Once it goes live, Babylon will enable bitcoin owners to securely lock their bitcoin in a self-custodial manner, thereby acquiring the ability to validate proof of stake (PoS) chains and earn returns through yields. PoS chains and decentralized applications (dApps) can choose to leverage bitcoin-backed security, benefiting from enhanced security. 

pSTAKE's liquid staking solution will allow users to stake their bitcoin with Babylon while maintaining liquidity. However, pSTAKE is not the only project teaming up with Babylon to offer bitcoin liquid staking, with Layer 1 blockchain Nomic launching its stBTC liquid staking token last month.

“By integrating our BTC staking protocol, we're enabling pSTAKE to simplify and amplify the yield generation process for bitcoin holders. This collaboration underlines our commitment to enhancing bitcoin’s utility and liquidity, paving the way for a Bitcoin-powered DeFi ecosystem,” Babylon co-founder Fisher Yu added.

Babylon released its testnet in March and plans a second testnet deployment in the summer ahead of a mainnet launch later in the year.

Binance Labs, the $10 billion venture capital and incubation arm of crypto exchange Binance, is also an investor in Babylon, announcing an undisclosed investment in the project in February following investments in Ethereum liquid restaking protocols Renzo and Puffer Finance.