Three million dollars left Babylon's treasury in April, and it was not for anything Babylon built.
The Kelp DAO exploit had already drained rsETH from its bridge and left Aave holding bad debt. Babylon put two million into Aave V3 and one million into Aave V4 as part of the recovery.
A smaller detail sat with me longer than the number itself. Babylon said any interest earned on that deposit would flow back into Aave through incentives tied to a planned integration between the two protocols.
That is not quite a donation. It reads more like a deposit with a relationship attached to it, help that also happens to serve a future interest.
Here is where I slowed down though. Crypto has seen rescue gestures turn out to be something else before.
Binance offered to acquire FTX in November 2022 when FTX faced a liquidity crunch, and for about a day it looked like industry solidarity. Binance walked away less than twenty four hours later, citing what it found once it looked closer at the books.
That example does not accuse Babylon of anything. It just reminds me that a rescue offer and a genuine rescue are not always the same thing, and the difference sometimes only shows up later.
I looked into where Babylon's capital came from before assuming too much. A16z had put fifteen million into Babylon Labs in January for native Bitcoin collateral vaults, capital that clearly did not stay confined to its original purpose.
I kept asking why a Bitcoin staking protocol would care about an Ethereum restaking exploit at all. Aave sits close enough to the center of DeFi credit that instability there reaches outward, whether a protocol wants it to or not.
I am not treating this deposit as pure goodwill or pure strategy. Most rescue capital in this space carries both, and it usually takes time before anyone can tell which one was doing the driving.
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY
The Kelp DAO exploit had already drained rsETH from its bridge and left Aave holding bad debt. Babylon put two million into Aave V3 and one million into Aave V4 as part of the recovery.
A smaller detail sat with me longer than the number itself. Babylon said any interest earned on that deposit would flow back into Aave through incentives tied to a planned integration between the two protocols.
That is not quite a donation. It reads more like a deposit with a relationship attached to it, help that also happens to serve a future interest.
Here is where I slowed down though. Crypto has seen rescue gestures turn out to be something else before.
Binance offered to acquire FTX in November 2022 when FTX faced a liquidity crunch, and for about a day it looked like industry solidarity. Binance walked away less than twenty four hours later, citing what it found once it looked closer at the books.
That example does not accuse Babylon of anything. It just reminds me that a rescue offer and a genuine rescue are not always the same thing, and the difference sometimes only shows up later.
I looked into where Babylon's capital came from before assuming too much. A16z had put fifteen million into Babylon Labs in January for native Bitcoin collateral vaults, capital that clearly did not stay confined to its original purpose.
I kept asking why a Bitcoin staking protocol would care about an Ethereum restaking exploit at all. Aave sits close enough to the center of DeFi credit that instability there reaches outward, whether a protocol wants it to or not.
I am not treating this deposit as pure goodwill or pure strategy. Most rescue capital in this space carries both, and it usually takes time before anyone can tell which one was doing the driving.
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY