I want to talk about a very specific number today: the vault script size in Babylon.
The weight limit of a Bitcoin block is 4,000,000 units. A standard transaction typically uses about 200–300 units. But TBV’s vault-creation transactions are much larger than ordinary transactions because they include complex covenant scripts, Merkle path proofs, and multi-signature logic.
I did a rough estimate: a typical TBV vault creation transaction has a weight of about 1,500–2,500 units. This means that at most a Bitcoin block can contain roughly 1,600–2,600 vault-creation transactions. If Babylon’s user base grows, vault creation alone could consume a significant portion of block space.
This brings up two problems.
First is the competition problem. When vault-creation transactions and other regular Bitcoin transactions compete for block space, whoever bids higher gets included first. Big players can set the gas fee very high to cut in line; small retail users can only wait or pay higher fees. This is essentially the same as gas wars on Ethereum, except the battlefield has moved from the EVM to the Bitcoin mainnet.
Second is the issue of long-term sustainability. If Babylon really reaches a million-level user base, thousands of vault-creation and redemption transactions every day would flood the Bitcoin network. Will there be enough block space? The same problem that Lightning Network faced back then is something Babylon will inevitably have to deal with sooner or later.
I see two response strategies from Babylon. One is aggregated redemptions: combine multiple redemption requests into a single transaction to reduce the on-chain footprint. The other is to encourage long-term locking— the longer you lock, the lower the amortized cost of the vault-creation transaction.
But these are only mitigations, not a cure. As long as the underlying layer is still the Bitcoin mainnet, the throughput ceiling is there.
@BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby
The weight limit of a Bitcoin block is 4,000,000 units. A standard transaction typically uses about 200–300 units. But TBV’s vault-creation transactions are much larger than ordinary transactions because they include complex covenant scripts, Merkle path proofs, and multi-signature logic.
I did a rough estimate: a typical TBV vault creation transaction has a weight of about 1,500–2,500 units. This means that at most a Bitcoin block can contain roughly 1,600–2,600 vault-creation transactions. If Babylon’s user base grows, vault creation alone could consume a significant portion of block space.
This brings up two problems.
First is the competition problem. When vault-creation transactions and other regular Bitcoin transactions compete for block space, whoever bids higher gets included first. Big players can set the gas fee very high to cut in line; small retail users can only wait or pay higher fees. This is essentially the same as gas wars on Ethereum, except the battlefield has moved from the EVM to the Bitcoin mainnet.
Second is the issue of long-term sustainability. If Babylon really reaches a million-level user base, thousands of vault-creation and redemption transactions every day would flood the Bitcoin network. Will there be enough block space? The same problem that Lightning Network faced back then is something Babylon will inevitably have to deal with sooner or later.
I see two response strategies from Babylon. One is aggregated redemptions: combine multiple redemption requests into a single transaction to reduce the on-chain footprint. The other is to encourage long-term locking— the longer you lock, the lower the amortized cost of the vault-creation transaction.
But these are only mitigations, not a cure. As long as the underlying layer is still the Bitcoin mainnet, the throughput ceiling is there.
@BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby