Babylon project designs security protocols that scale Bitcoin to secure the decentralized world. To this end, Babylon utilizes the three primary facets of Bitcoin: bitcoin the asset, Bitcoin the PoW-secured timestamping server, and Bitcoin the most censorship-resistant blockspace in the world. Through inventing pioneering protocols, Babylon envisions a more secure and Bitcoin-centric decentralized world. Learn more at Babylon.io.

New blocks on Babylon are proposed by validators. To enable Babylon to run seamlessly, validators need the technical capabilities to offer a secure, always on infrastructure.

Not everyone is able to do this. Some token holders participate indirectly by delegating the tokens they have to a validator. Validators are running a service for delegators. They typically charge a fee to cover their operational costs.

By delegating BTC, you help secure the network. You get part of the rewards provided by the protocol for this assistance. If you are planning to hold on to BTC for some time, delegating will help you accumulate more Babylon token (BBN) while contributing to the health of the network.

You are not giving away ownership of BTC by delegating. As a validator, stakefish will never have the ability to move your BTC.

The litepaper elaborates the core concepts that enable Bitcoin staking. Here we extend the concepts and describe Bitcoin staking from a system perspective. The Bitcoin staking protocol introduces a mechanism to facilitate slashing in response to safety violations. This mechanism revolves around the exposure of the staker's secret key whenever a safety violation occurs. We combine two concepts to achieve this: Accountable assertions from cryptography, and Finality gadgets from blockchain consensus.