The two people who invented "restaking" for Ethereum and Bitcoin used to work together
Went down a rabbit hole today comparing Babylon to EigenLayer, since both let already-staked capital secure extra networks for extra yield. Expected to find two unrelated projects that happened to converge on a similar idea. Found something else instead.
Babylon's founder, David Tse, is a Stanford professor. One of his former students is Sreeram Kannan — who went on to found EigenLayer. Same intellectual lineage, same core insight about reusing staked capital, applied to two completely different chains that can't actually talk to each other.
But the part that matters more than the trivia: EigenLayer runs its logic in Ethereum smart contracts. Babylon can't do that — Bitcoin doesn't support smart contracts — so it had to solve the same problem using Bitcoin Script and timelocks instead. That's not a limitation dressed up as a feature. It's the reason Babylon has no smart contract risk layer at all, while EigenLayer's entire security model depends on one. Same idea, opposite attack surface.
EigenLayer also picked up real criticism for concentrating risk — the same ETH backing dozens of services at once, so one bad AVS can drag down capital that had nothing to do with it. Babylon's multi-staking is heading toward the same shape. Whether Bitcoin's simpler, contract-free design actually avoids that problem, or just delays it, isn't settled yet.
Two students of the same idea, building on chains that can't compromise. Does the "no smart contracts" version end up safer, or just differently risky?
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY
#BTC $BTC
Went down a rabbit hole today comparing Babylon to EigenLayer, since both let already-staked capital secure extra networks for extra yield. Expected to find two unrelated projects that happened to converge on a similar idea. Found something else instead.
Babylon's founder, David Tse, is a Stanford professor. One of his former students is Sreeram Kannan — who went on to found EigenLayer. Same intellectual lineage, same core insight about reusing staked capital, applied to two completely different chains that can't actually talk to each other.
But the part that matters more than the trivia: EigenLayer runs its logic in Ethereum smart contracts. Babylon can't do that — Bitcoin doesn't support smart contracts — so it had to solve the same problem using Bitcoin Script and timelocks instead. That's not a limitation dressed up as a feature. It's the reason Babylon has no smart contract risk layer at all, while EigenLayer's entire security model depends on one. Same idea, opposite attack surface.
EigenLayer also picked up real criticism for concentrating risk — the same ETH backing dozens of services at once, so one bad AVS can drag down capital that had nothing to do with it. Babylon's multi-staking is heading toward the same shape. Whether Bitcoin's simpler, contract-free design actually avoids that problem, or just delays it, isn't settled yet.
Two students of the same idea, building on chains that can't compromise. Does the "no smart contracts" version end up safer, or just differently risky?
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY
#BTC $BTC