I used to think wrapping Bitcoin was simply the price of using it in DeFi. Every product I had tried followed roughly the same pattern. You moved your BTC first, and only then could you borrow, trade, or access liquidity. After seeing that flow enough times, I stopped asking whether it actually had to exist.
That assumption stayed with me until I tried Babylon's Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) testnet.
Halfway through the borrowing flow, I found myself waiting for the moment when my Bitcoin would become something else. I even restarted the process because I assumed I had missed a step. The second attempt looked exactly the same. That was when I realized the missing step was not missing at all. There was never supposed to be another version of my Bitcoin.
That moment changed the way I looked at the product.
The interesting part is not that TBV makes borrowing with native Bitcoin possible. The interesting part is the question it starts with. Instead of asking how Bitcoin can be moved into DeFi, it asks how DeFi can recognize the collateral value of native Bitcoin while the asset itself never leaves the Bitcoin network.
At first, that sounds like a small architectural difference. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like a completely different way of approaching the problem. It shifts the focus away from transporting assets and toward proving collateral. It also makes you question whether wrapping Bitcoin was ever the destination, or simply the compromise the industry accepted because no better alternative existed.
I finished the testnet with a different takeaway than I expected. Maybe Bitcoin DeFi does not need more efficient ways to move Bitcoin. Maybe it needs fewer reasons to move Bitcoin in the first place.
$LAB @BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby
That assumption stayed with me until I tried Babylon's Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) testnet.
Halfway through the borrowing flow, I found myself waiting for the moment when my Bitcoin would become something else. I even restarted the process because I assumed I had missed a step. The second attempt looked exactly the same. That was when I realized the missing step was not missing at all. There was never supposed to be another version of my Bitcoin.
That moment changed the way I looked at the product.
The interesting part is not that TBV makes borrowing with native Bitcoin possible. The interesting part is the question it starts with. Instead of asking how Bitcoin can be moved into DeFi, it asks how DeFi can recognize the collateral value of native Bitcoin while the asset itself never leaves the Bitcoin network.
At first, that sounds like a small architectural difference. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like a completely different way of approaching the problem. It shifts the focus away from transporting assets and toward proving collateral. It also makes you question whether wrapping Bitcoin was ever the destination, or simply the compromise the industry accepted because no better alternative existed.
I finished the testnet with a different takeaway than I expected. Maybe Bitcoin DeFi does not need more efficient ways to move Bitcoin. Maybe it needs fewer reasons to move Bitcoin in the first place.
$LAB @BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby