重生之撸毛之王

“EVM compatible” solves how developers can get in. What Hedger needs to solve is: after institutions come in, which data should not be made public

Recently I came across an analysis of DuskEVM. The author said something that I couldn’t stop thinking about—“EVM compatible only solves half the problem.”

Solidity, Foundry, Hardhat—these tools let developers reuse the familiar Ethereum toolchain. But the author raised a sharper issue: would institutions really be willing to disclose all balances, positions, and transaction amounts?

The more I think about it, the more I feel this question is the core contradiction in the RWA space. You put securities on-chain—technology isn’t the problem. The problem is that once on-chain, every transaction data point is open for everyone to watch: positions, counterparties, and the flow of funds are all completely transparent. That’s unacceptable in traditional financial markets.
@Dusk
The answer from Dusk’s Hedger module is: homomorphic encryption enables data to participate in computation while staying encrypted, and zero-knowledge proofs ensure that the results satisfy the rules. The data doesn’t necessarily need to be public, but the execution can still be verified.

For market makers, sensitive positions can be hidden. For financial institutions, confidential balances can be protected. And when auditing is required, disclosure can be authorized. In terms of logic, this design really does resolve the “privacy–compliance paradox.”

But the issue is that Hedger is still at the testnet stage. A feature still being tested is being written into the core narrative of institutional RWA. Homomorphic encryption plus zero-knowledge proofs—this combo is valid in theory. But between “theory holds” and institutions actually using it, there are three hurdles: getting the mainnet workflow running, completing load/stress testing, and obtaining regulatory recognition.

EVM compatibility solves how developers get in. Hedger is meant to solve what data absolutely should not be exposed after financial institutions come in. If DuskEVM’s mainnet can ultimately run this confidential EVM workflow, then that’s where I think its real differentiation lies. Until then, “EVM compatible” only solves half the problem.
#dusk $DUSK

DUSK community is voting: burn the block rewards that were burned, or put them into a treasury to keep it deflationary?

In August, the DUSK community is holding a crucial vote: whether to put into a community treasury the block rewards that were originally meant to be burned. It sounds like a technical upgrade, but in reality it’s a redistribution of benefits—protecting the interests of existing stakers while also leaving incentive room for future developers.

The big node came out directly: My block production rate is high; burning makes it deflationary. Putting rewards into a treasury isn’t just theft from the rich to help the poor, is it? For them, block rewards are compensation for validators’ work. Sacrificing yield to subsidize developers doesn’t add up. Developers, on the other hand, are cheering: finally, there’s food and supplies. A privacy chain without an application layer—no matter how strong the privacy is, you can’t collect tolls. It’s been nearly 8 months since the mainnet launched, and there are only a handful of on-chain applications. Without funding to attract teams to onboard, this chain can only remain in a state of “cool technology but no one uses it.”

This vote also exposes DUSK’s ecosystem power structure. Currently, there are about 200 active validators, and the top 20 control more than 35% of staked assets. With 35% of the stake concentrated in just 10% of validators, where is the decentralization? It’s clearly an “on-chain oligarchic politics.” But that’s also part of Dusk’s appeal—it doesn’t pretend. It puts the power game on the table so you can see who controls this network. @Dusk

If the proposal passes, it means the right to distribute Dusk’s block rewards can be changed by community vote, and governance won’t just be a formality. Once the gate is opened, more votes about node rewards, staking yield rates, and ecosystem grants may follow. If OpenDusk passes, DUSK will move from “team-led” to “community co-governance.” If it doesn’t pass, it will keep its deflationary path.

No matter the outcome, this will be the biggest variable near $0.06. Community governance isn’t a dinner invitation—it’s a real-money reshuffling of power. Wait for the voting results and then see where this chain goes: if it passes, developers get their food; if it fails, the big nodes win and developers keep waiting. The future of this chain may be hidden in the final result of this ballot. #dusk $DUSK

I reviewed more than a dozen hands-on test posts on the DuskEVM testnet, and saw someone say: “Choose-and-disclose cards ‘in the caching layer’.”

On August 10, the DuskEVM testnet went live, and more and more hands-on posts appeared in the plaza. Some people used Solidity and Hardhat to deploy contracts, and said getting started was smoother than they’d imagined. The Hedger module runs confidential transactions using homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs; developers don’t need to learn new languages, and it really breaks a lot of people’s stereotypical impression that privacy chains are “anti-human.”

But when I came across one post, I stopped. The author said they’d done a selective disclosure test: private transfer → request authorization → show data to a specific party. The earlier steps all worked; payments and verification also passed. But it got stuck at the final “disclosure layer.” They assumed it was just testnet latency at first. Later they found that the routes had cleared and the Hedger status was also green—only the selective disclosure step was slower than expected. In the end, they pointed to something that hardly anyone talks about: the caching layer determines when the “privacy state” becomes usable for the next authorization call. @Dusk

This detail is actually more worth pondering than “how many TPS.” Selective disclosure is Dusk’s core selling point to institutions—transactions remain confidential, but audits are still possible. If this part already has latency on the testnet, then when the mainnet sees transaction volume pick up and multiple authorization requests pour in at the same time, can the caching layer hold up? The author even asked the question themselves: when multiple authorization reviews arrive at once, and the economic commitments must remain continuous, what exactly is making it work?

The DuskEVM testnet is open, and Hedger can run through successfully. The technical foundation is definitely moving forward. But between “it runs” and “institutions dare to use it,” there’s still a lot of pressure testing missing. Selective disclosure isn’t something you just need to “have”—it needs to be “steady” under real load. I’ll only say this chain is truly ready when I see someone share disclosure-latency data under high concurrency on the testnet.

#dusk $DUSK

After testing that Dusk double-account mutual transfers thing, my neck is a little cold—privacy is made for users, not to let developers get insulted.

Last night I saw an experiment post. The author moved Dusk’s Moonlight and Phoenix back and forth for a few transactions—then the more they played, the weirder it got.

Two addresses derived from the same set of mnemonic phrases—one is as transparent as a glass tank, the other is a black box where you can’t even see balances. On the user side, you just tap “switch” and it goes through, but under the hood the protocol is running completely two separate accounting models: Moonlight is an account model, with balances written directly into the contract; Phoenix is UTXO plus note, relying on Pedersen commitments and nullifiers to piece things together. @Dusk

So tell me—cool design, isn’t it? It’s cool. But try writing a lending contract on top of it. During settlement, you’d have to manage both sets of state at the same time: ETH balances and Phoenix privacy note nullifiers must be accounted together. Writing Moonlight logic risks being hunted by big players; writing Phoenix logic risks regulators just shutting off your interface. The documentation waves it off with a breezy line like “choose as needed.” Developers read that and just want to curse—this isn’t modularity; it’s dumping a multiple-choice question onto the ecosystem and making everyone else pay the bill.

What chills me even more is another part of the analysis. NPEX’s story about security tokens sounds pretty convincing, but in the end they’re all still crouched on Moonlight. The MiCA folks even demand quarterly audits of stablecoin reserves. When you tell them, “I have zk-proof so you can have an obfuscated view,” the regulator’s first reaction is always: can the code export an Excel in one click? Phoenix’s “selective disclosure,” to lawyers, is a technical black box—if something goes wrong, who signs the papers? Institutions aren’t dumb. With real money on the line, they’d rather go fully transparent than risk losing accountability.

Right now on-chain staking yield looks fine at 36%, but insiders know it’s basically nodes doing self-congratulation. DuskEVM is already live—but if next year the Dapp list still leaves the Phoenix slot empty, this project will degrade into an EVM chain with a privacy plugin, and the narrative collapses by half.

I’m not saying the technology isn’t solid—this coupling of UTXO with ZK is indeed hardcore. But the biggest failure is that the product didn’t provide a default answer. Ordinary users can’t even remember mnemonic phrases, and you still make them hesitate every time they transfer: “Should I enable privacy today?”

I was going to park an observation position, but I pulled it back. I’ll wait until I see the first case where someone throws the core liquidity pool onto Phoenix and gets written regulatory endorsement from the European Union—then we’ll talk.
#dusk $DUSK

The Dusk mainnet has been running for half a year—its technology is solid now, but applications haven’t quite caught up yet. That’s the biggest suspense.

Recently I saw an article where the author said they have a habit: whenever a project says “mainnet is live,” they automatically assume it means “you can start observing now,” because they’ve seen too many projects where, even six months after mainnet went live, nobody is using them.

So the author sat on the Dusk chain and watched for three days. The conclusion is: it really is running. The decentralization of the validator nodes looks reasonably good, the staking amount reached a level that doesn’t look like it’s staged, the block height increases steadily, the block production interval is normal, it’s not fake volume someone is generating themselves—there are genuinely users interacting.

Mainnet is stable—this is the first step.

But having a stable mainnet is only the first step. The author also said that there still aren’t many on-chain applications. While DuskEVM has gone live, the number of ecosystem projects still lags far behind Ethereum’s Layer 2s. Whether developers come—and whether they can stay—will be the next key.
@Dusk

Another analytical article pointed to the same issue. At first, the author thought DuskEVM was “just another EVM chain.” But after deeper research, they found something interesting: what happens when the familiar EVM layer connects to a privacy infrastructure designed around regulated finance? Financial applications can’t assume transparency is a feature. Large institutions may need to prove that transactions are valid without revealing complete holdings.

Dusk’s technical architecture really does address this problem. The Hedger module introduces a confidential EVM workflow using homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs. But the architecture solves the question of “can it be built,” not the question of “is anyone using it.”

Dusk started in 2018, and only went live on the mainnet earlier this year—six years in between. Taking six years to launch the mainnet suggests they’re not in a rush to “cut,” and that the technical foundation is solid. But between technical solidity and ecosystem prosperity, there’s still a long road.

What we need to observe next isn’t how many code updates happen, but the Gas and settlement demand generated once real-world assets start calling these facilities. Only when transaction volume rises can DUSK’s value capture truly be realized.

Mainnet is stable—this is a good start. But where are the applications, where are the developers, and where is the transaction volume—those are the key questions ahead. I’ll keep observing and see what happens once the STOX platform truly gets going.
#dusk $DUSK

When I started researching Dusk’s privacy architecture, I thought the biggest problem was simply: “How much can you hide?”

A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon a post on a forum. The author said something that I couldn’t stop thinking about: “When I began studying Dusk’s privacy architecture, I originally thought the most obvious question was quite straightforward: how much can you actually conceal? Then I started to think about what happens after it’s hidden. That’s what’s more interesting to me.”

Dusk’s Hedger module uses homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs to enable confidential EVM workflows. For institutions, the appeal is indeed clear—you don’t want every wallet on the public chain watching your positions, order sizes, or trading intentions in real time. But what happens after it’s “hidden”? In traditional DeFi, liquidity providers set prices by observing the order book and the flow of trades. If those signals are obscured by privacy protections, how does price discovery happen?

The author gave a concrete example: if nobody can see trading volume or signs of buy/sell imbalance, how do market makers price orders? Market makers need price signals to react. When privacy removes visibility, they end up seeing a market with no information. If market signals are covered up layer by layer by privacy, market makers may widen the bid-ask spread—and might even withdraw completely from certain trading pairs. The trading depth and low slippage that institutions want rely precisely on the effective flow of market information. When privacy protects one side, it may deprive the other side of the information market makers need. @Dusk

To make things even more complicated, in Dusk, confidential transactions default to hiding the amounts and asset types. Only holders of the auditing keys can view them. Institutions certainly like this design—but who holds the auditing key? Regulators? The asset issuer? Or a third-party auditing firm? If the key is in someone’s hands, then the “privacy switch” is not actually controlled by the user.

The answer to this question determines whether Dusk is a privacy tool built to serve users—or a monitoring tool built to serve regulators. Technology can make selective disclosure possible, but deciding “who has the right to see” and “when they can see” is harder than the cryptography itself. Once this governance question has a clear answer, I’ll be able to judge whether Dusk’s privacy architecture is truly an evolution of the financial system—or just compliance monitoring in a different form. #dusk $DUSK

Dusk claims its TPS is over 500, but I looked into the on-chain data—more than 70% of the blocks still have fewer than 2 transactions.

Dusk has been boasting about how great its technology is. TPS over 500, a 40% improvement in zero-knowledge proof generation speed, and the mainnet running stably for over 17 months. It sounds much more reliable than privacy projects that just shout slogans.

But after I went through the on-chain data, I calmed down.

The Dusk mainnet block height has already surpassed 109,000. Technically, the average block time of 2 seconds is definitely not an issue. The problem is block utilization—it's shockingly low. In more than 70% of the blocks, the number of transactions is still under 2. There are often consecutive empty blocks. The daily transaction count barely breaks 1,000. I reviewed a dozen-plus consecutive blocks and found that several blocks had only one transaction, and some were completely empty. The narrative of TPS over 500 is pretty convincing, but the network simply doesn’t have enough transactions to process. @Dusk

Even more painful: the network’s daily average active addresses are fewer than 80. And after deducting a large number of project teams’ own wallets, actual user participation is basically zero. A Layer-1 focused on “institutional-grade financial infrastructure,” yet its daily active users are under 80. Over there, even some random meme coin has several times that. I even checked specifically—some newly launched memecoins have on-chain active addresses in the past 24 hours that are more than ten times Dusk’s. This isn’t a technology problem; it’s a problem of whether anyone is actually using it.

The staking data doesn’t look great either. A 1,000 DUSK staking minimum sounds acceptable, but the official side is vague about the return rate—they only mention something like “geometric-decay release.” Combined with a 4.8-hour lock-up period, the appeal is almost nonexistent. I reviewed the staking data, and the number of addresses genuinely participating in staking isn’t nearly as high as people might imagine.

I’m not saying Dusk’s technology isn’t good. Zero-knowledge proofs do have substance, and the PLONKup optimization really can deliver. But no matter how strong the technology is, it only matters if people use it. The on-chain data right now tells me this: Dusk’s technology is indeed leading—but its network might be the most desolate “highway” I’ve ever seen. The road is built well, but there are no cars running on it. When someday the daily transaction volume breaks ten thousand and active addresses break one thousand, I’ll come back and trust that this road truly has people traveling it. #dusk $DUSK

Dusk calls itself a “compliant privacy chain,” but after studying it for a while, I found it’s neither fully anonymous nor fully transparent

The first question that popped into my head when I first saw Dusk was: can privacy and compliance really go together? Monero-style “nobody look at me” black-box models probably won’t get far in the 2026 regulatory environment. But what exactly is “compliant privacy” that Dusk talks about?

I spent several nights reading its whitepaper and community discussions, and finally figured out its logic—selective disclosure. You don’t have to publish trading details, but if you want to prove your innocence, or if regulators need an audit, you can proactively grant permission so they can look. And when an audit is needed, you can proactively open the permissions again.@Dusk

This approach is indeed smarter than Monero’s “nobody look at me” black box. Traditional financial institutions can’t operate in a glass house where every transaction is public, but they also definitely wouldn’t dare to use a fully anonymous black box. Dusk uses zero-knowledge proofs to split the contradiction—prove that the transaction is correct, but not reveal transaction details to others.

But the problem is: in practice, who actually controls this “selective disclosure” switch? I specifically dug through the documentation for Citadel’s identity system and found that validators must do KYC. That means Dusk’s node operators aren’t anonymous; regulators know who to contact when needed. This leaves me a bit conflicted—does it really function as a privacy tool for institutions, or as a monitoring tool for regulators?

I’m still observing how Dusk is actually rolling out in the real world. DuskEVM has already gone live on the testnet, and the mainnet has been running stably for almost a year and a half. If there are truly institutions using it for RWA, then this “compliant privacy” direction really does hold water. But if, in the end, it’s only retail users playing with it, then the difference between Dusk and other privacy coins may just be an added label of “compliance.”

It’s undeniably clever—but who gets to decide that? I still need to look more closely.
#dusk $DUSK

Babylon BTC staking annualized yield of 1–3%, BTC can move 5% in a day—what does this yield even mean?

For Babylon’s BTC staking, the official estimate of the annualized return is roughly between 1% and 3%, paid in BABY tokens. Kraken has launched a Babylon staking channel, with a yield of about 1%.

Sounds not too bad, right? Just hold BTC and let it earn interest.

But daily BTC volatility of 5% is routine. If you lock BTC for 7 days to chase a 3% annualized return, and BTC drops 10% during those 7 days, your “3% annualized” return can’t even cover a fraction of that fluctuation. And that’s before considering BABY’s own price volatility—what you receive as rewards is BABY, not BTC. If BABY keeps falling, your real return might be well under 1%.@BabylonLabs_io

For a return that can’t even cover price swings, you lock your BTC and take on validator slashing risk, protocol vulnerability risk, and liquidity risk during the unbonding period. Is this a good trade? Babylon’s technology is indeed advanced, but being technologically ahead doesn’t mean retail investors can actually make money. The people who truly profit from that 1–3% are either whales with very large BTC positions who don’t care about this level of volatility, or speculators betting on future appreciation of the BABY token.

If a retail user stakes 1 BTC, earning only a few hundred dollars’ worth of BABY in a year—that’s not enough to offset what BTC can lose in just one day. BTC is already one of the most volatile assets. When you “put it to work” for such meager interest, you’re actually exposing it to more risks. The best use of BTC may simply be to keep it where it is.
#baby $BABY

Babylon’s TVL has surpassed $6 billion, but the returns from staking 1 BTC as a retail user still aren’t enough for a meal.

Babylon’s TVL has already broken through $6 billion, with over 57,000 BTC locked in. Every time I see this number, I can’t help but marvel—Bitcoin is finally “alive.”

But after the marveling, I did the math.

Babylon’s current annualized yield on BTC staking is roughly between 1% and 3%. If you stake 1 BTC, the yearly return is only a few hundred dollars. Sounds okay, right? But here’s the catch: Babylon’s early staking quotas—whether it’s pSTAKE’s 50 BTC cap or Solv Protocol’s 500 BTC allocation—were gobbled up by big players within minutes. The odds that retail users can get in are about the same as winning the lottery.@BabylonLabs_io

What retail users can participate in now is basically exchange-style custodial staking channels like Kraken, with an annualized yield of only around 1%. A 1% yield, while also bearing the risk that validators get slashed. If the delegated validator behaves maliciously, your BTC really could be reduced by a portion. The slashing amount is 0.1%—it sounds small, but that’s BTC. For a 1% return, is it worth taking a 0.1% slashing risk?

Babylon’s narrative has always been about “turning Bitcoin into a productive asset.” From a technical perspective, it’s definitely leading. But in reality, the ones truly capturing this wave of benefits are the whales and institutions that can scoop up the early quotas in bulk. If a retail user stakes 1 BTC, the annual gains might still not cover a single meal. This isn’t “making Bitcoin come alive”—it’s “helping whales make an extra buck with their Bitcoin.”

I do recognize and appreciate Babylon’s technical direction. But based on how the revenue is structured in this space right now, it doesn’t look very friendly to retail users. I’ll consider moving my BTC out of my cold wallet only when, one day, retail users can participate easily too, yields can stay reliably above 3%, and the slashing risk is truly controllable. For now, I’ll keep lying low.
#baby $BABY

Babylon’s slashing mechanism is not just scare tactics—when validators mess up, your BTC gets docked

Babylon has always emphasized “self-custody” and “no trust required.” Your BTC is locked in Bitcoin’s native timelock, and the private keys remain in your hands. It sounds—and arguably is—safer than the wBTC setup: no cross-chain bridge, no custodians, no wrapped assets.

But after reading through the slashing mechanism, I calmed down.

Here’s how Babylon’s slashing works: you stake BTC with Finality Providers. These nodes run on BSN (Bitcoin Security Network) and are responsible for signing voting for PoS chains. If they act maliciously—such as equivocation—then a portion of your BTC is directly slashed on the Bitcoin chain.

Not a warning—an immediate deduction. Executed on-chain in Bitcoin; you can’t bypass it or dodge it.

The official claim is that the slashing ratio for equivocation is only 0.1%. That sounds small, right? But that’s the penalty proportion per offense. What if the network is attacked, validators keep misbehaving, or there’s a large-scale slash event? Would the slashing ratio be adjusted? In theory, it can be, but any adjustment requires a vote through Babylon’s governance mechanism—and in early-stage projects, governance votes are often dominated by big players. @BabylonLabs_io

What makes me even less confident is that ordinary users can’t monitor Finality Providers’ signing behavior in real time the way you can track activity on Etherscan. You stake BTC and delegate it to a validator, but you can’t continuously verify whether they double-signed or acted maliciously. By the time you notice a problem, the slashing may have already happened.

The essence of Babylon’s slashing mechanism is to shift “operational risk” from validators to stakers. When a validator does something wrong, your BTC gets deducted. You stake, and you take on that risk.

Babylon is indeed more advanced than the centralized-custody wBTC model. But “advanced” and “risk-free” are two different things. BTC staking is not a risk-free business with guaranteed returns—if validators make mistakes, your BTC really will be reduced by a piece.
#baby $BABY

500 BTC quota snatched in 2 minutes for early staking; the whales took more than half, and retail investors can’t even get a taste of the soup

On July 19, Solv Protocol and Babylon jointly opened an early staking quota of 500 BTC. When I opened the page, it showed “Fully filled.” 500 BTC worth tens of millions of dollars were sold out in 2 minutes.

What’s even more painful is the on-chain data. Two whales took 299 BTC, with a staked amount totaling $19.15 million. The remaining 201 BTC—hundreds or even thousands of retail investors fought over that tiny slice of quota. This isn’t the first time. pSTAKE launched liquid staking on Babylon with a deposit limit of 50 BTC. 50 BTC was snapped up instantly as well. Big players take the meat; retail can’t even drink the broth. @BabylonLabs_io

Babylon says it has locked over 56,853 BTC, with TVL exceeding $6 billion. But among those 57,000 BTC, how many belong to ordinary retail investors? I guess the share is painfully low. Whales capture yield opportunities through early quotas, exclusive channels, and batch operations. Retail investors can only stare blankly at a page that says “Fully filled.” In Solv Protocol’s 500 BTC quota, the whales’ 299 BTC is what’s staked. You could call it “market efficiency”—the more money you have, the more you get. But it’s also “discouraging retail”—you do months of tasks, and it’s still not as simple as a whale clicking a mouse.

Binance Labs did invest in Babylon, and a16z also put in $15 million. But “top VCs are bullish” and “retail investors can actually earn money” are two different things. Next time there’s a quota opening, I won’t wait foolishly for the page to load. What retail can do is either prepare in advance and race for speed, or just give up. For now, the BTC staking track looks like a playground for whales, with retail running alongside as an audience.
#baby $BABY

500 BTC quota was gone in 2 minutes; by the time I opened the browser, it was already gone.

On July 19, Solv Protocol and Babylon jointly opened an early staking quota for 500 BTC.

500 BTC, at current prices, is worth tens of millions of dollars. When I opened the page, it showed “Full.” In 2 minutes, the 500 BTC was snapped up. I didn’t even get a chance to click the button.

What was even more frustrating was that on-chain analysts’ data showed that two whales alone took 299 BTC. 299 BTC, nearly 60% of the total. Retail users were left fighting over the remaining 201 BTC, with hundreds or even thousands of people splitting that tiny amount. @BabylonLabs_io

This wasn’t the first time. Before this, pSTAKE launched liquid staking on Babylon with a deposit cap of 50 BTC. 50 BTC was also gone in 2 minutes. Big players got the meat, while retail users couldn’t even get the soup, only catch the smell.

Babylon said its TVL exceeded $6 billion and that more than 57,000 BTC were locked. But out of those 57,000 BTC, how much actually came from ordinary retail users? My guess is the share is pitifully small. Whales and institutions used early quotas, exclusive channels, and batch operations to take most of the profit opportunities. Retail users could only stare at the “Full” page in silence.

This isn’t just a Babylon problem. Almost all early high-yield opportunities follow the same script — limited quota, whales take the whole stage, and retail users just run along. But every time I see data like “gone in 2 minutes,” I still feel a sinking feeling.

I’m not saying Babylon is bad. The technology is indeed ahead, and the financing background is indeed strong. But “technological leadership” and “retail users making money” are two very different things. Next time another quota opens, I won’t stupidly wait for the page to load. What retail users can do is either prepare in advance and race for speed, or give up on the idea and honestly just hold BTC without overcomplicating things.
#baby $BABY

pSTAKE launched liquid staking on Babylon, but the 50 BTC deposit limit makes me think this isn’t meant for retail users.

pSTAKE Finance launched a Bitcoin liquid staking solution on Babylon. Users can earn yield while keeping their BTC completely liquid.

Doesn’t that sound almost perfect? You can stake to earn, without being locked out of liquidity.@BabylonLabs_io

But when I looked at the rules more closely, I was stunned—the deposit limit is 50 BTC. At current prices, 50 BTC is worth several million dollars. Isn’t this basically a VIP channel for whales?

I asked a friend who works in liquid staking. After hearing it, he laughed: “A 50 BTC limit means most retail users can’t even get in. And these early quotas usually get snapped up by whales within minutes—by the time you see the news, it’s already full.”

Babylon says it has currently locked more than 57,000 BTC. But when you put 57,000 BTC alongside a 50 BTC cap, it shows that this pSTAKE liquid staking offering is really just a ‘pilot’—small volume, high threshold, and most likely meant for institutions and whales to test.

pSTAKE’s solution does address one pain point with Babylon’s native staking: native staking requires waiting about 7 days to unlock funds. For users who need to act flexibly, a 7-day unbonding period is too long. Liquid staking lets you exit anytime, without having to wait those 7 days.

But the problem is that the 50 BTC deposit limit means ordinary users can’t even get through the door. Liquidity exists, but it has nothing to do with you.

I’ll try again the day pSTAKE raises the deposit limit to a level where retail users can participate too. For now, this is a playground for whales—retail users can’t even afford a ticket.
#baby $BABY

Babylon says it wants to “bring Bitcoin to life,” but I first figured out one thing: BTC doesn’t need cross-chain anymore.

When I first saw Babylon, the first question that popped into my head was: Is this another project that wraps Bitcoin into wBTC and then takes it to stake?

After reading the materials, I realized I was wrong.

Babylon’s core logic is this: you don’t need to convert BTC into wBTC. You don’t need a cross-chain bridge. You don’t need to trust any custodian. You lock your BTC in a script called a “trustless Bitcoin vault” (TBV). It stays on the Bitcoin network, and your private key remains in your hands. Babylon then uses this locked BTC to provide “economic security” to other PoS chains, and it verifies your staking status through a timestamp protocol and cryptographic proofs. @BabylonLabs_io

Doesn’t that sound way more advanced than wBTC?

It is indeed more advanced. But being advanced doesn’t mean anyone will actually use it.

Babylon claims it has already locked over 56,853 BTC, with a total staked value of over $500 million. 56,853 BTC—by today’s prices, that’s indeed on the order of billions of dollars. The number is intimidating. But numbers are numbers. The annualized yield from staking BTC is roughly between 1% and 3%. 3% annualized—put that in DeFi and it’s not exactly impressive. You lock BTC into it, risking smart contract risk, protocol risk, and market risk, just to earn 1%–3%? You’d be better off just leaving it alone.

What worries me even more is that the staking yield paid out is in BABY tokens. You’ve all seen BABY’s price too—around $0.013, with a market cap of $53.8 million. A staking protocol that pays rewards using the BABY token—if BABY’s price keeps falling, your actual yield rate would be negative.

a16z invested $15 million in January 2026, and the price briefly spiked—then what? It’s still at 0.013 now. Babylon’s technical logic may be领先, but “technology leading” and “you can make money” are two different things. If I lock my BTC to earn BABY, I’d rather just store the BTC in a cold wallet and let it sleep—at least I don’t have to constantly worry.

Let’s watch for now. I’m not jumping in. As for BTC staking, let’s wait until the yield rate is actually worth it.

#baby $BABY

Airdrop registration is due by July 17, but I doubt how many people will still be left after this round

GRVT’s airdrop registration ends on July 17. TGE is on July 21. The timeline is very tight.

I’ve taken part in too many of these “earn points to get an airdrop” activities. Season two just ended: users earn their points, register their wallets, then wait for the TGE to receive the tokens. So what happens next? The day they receive the tokens is when a lot of people exit. This isn’t malicious shorting—this is human nature. If you make users grind for points for a few months, the first thing they do when they get the tokens is sell. Everyone’s the same.

GRVT says its real-user weekly retention is 67%. 67% sounds good, but this data was collected during the points-grinding period—while points were still available, users had motivation to stick around and keep farming. When the points are gone and the airdrop has been claimed, can the retention rate still hold up at 67%? I have my doubts. @grvt_io

More importantly, after the TGE, what will GRVT rely on to retain users? Trading experience? Interest-earning yield? Or the next season’s points incentives? If the third season keeps getting delayed, or if the incentive strength drops sharply, the rate at which users churn will be much faster than people expect.

I’m not saying GRVT can’t retain users, but user growth driven by airdrops naturally has an expiration date. After July 21 is when the real test of retention begins. Once that batch of “airdrop farmers” leaves, then we’ll see how many people are still willing to place real-money trades on this exchange. That’s when I’ll judge whether the project is truly worth it.
#grvt

Run the strategy three times—each time the cost is different. I can’t even figure out the profit.

I ran the same strategy three times on the Newton testnet, and the cost was different each time. The first time the Gas fee was $0.01, the second time $0.03, and the third time $0.02. The fluctuation range reached three times.
Same actions, same code, nothing changed—yet the cost was triple. This makes it impossible for me to estimate how much this strategy will actually cost to run.

The project team says the Gas fee depends on network load, but network load changes in real time with no pattern to follow. As a strategy developer, I can’t estimate the cost in advance. If my expected profit is $0.02, but on some execution it suddenly jumps to $0.03, then that trade is unprofitable. I don’t know when it will jump—I can only gamble on luck. I can’t find a formula in the whitepaper to calculate what the “network load” will be, because there isn’t one. That means each trigger is like a blind box: before opening it, you don’t know how much you’ll have to pay. @NewtonProtocol

A developer’s strategy needs a predictable cost environment. If the cost fluctuation range is as high as threefold, the strategy’s profit model is built on an unstable foundation. I’ve run the same strategy on other chains, where Gas fee fluctuations are usually within 20%, while Newton’s fluctuation range is 200%. When I run strategies on Ethereum testnet, Gas fee fluctuations are also typically around 20%, so I can roughly estimate the cost range. On Newton, it’s completely impossible to estimate—$0.01 to $0.03 is a difference of $0.02. For high-frequency strategies, that $0.02 alone can determine whether you make money or lose money today.

What’s even more troublesome is that the more random the timing of strategy triggers is, the greater the impact of cost fluctuations on the strategy’s profitability. High-frequency strategies are highly sensitive to costs. If you pay an extra $0.01 each time, after a hundred runs you’ve eaten up $1 in profit—fatal for high-frequency trading. Low-frequency strategies are less sensitive, but the difference in single-run cost can directly affect whether execution happens. If the ratio of per-trade cost to expected profit is too high, then many strategies that can run in simulation environments won’t be able to run at all after deployment, because once costs consume the profit, the strategy’s expected returns are completely thrown off.

#newt $NEWT

The project’s weekly reports are getting shorter and shorter. I suspect they don’t even have much to say anymore.

I subscribed to Newton’s weekly report emails, and since the first week, I’ve noticed a trend: the reports keep getting shorter.

The first week’s report was six pages long and packed with content, including technical progress, community activities, and a data review. The second week was reduced to four pages. The latest issue is only two and a half pages, and the main points are just “the mainnet is running steadily,” “the team continues to optimize,” and “please stay tuned for future announcements.” These three sentences are repeated over and over, which is almost the same as saying nothing at all.

When weekly reports get shorter, it usually means one of two things: either the project is moving too slowly and there’s nothing worth writing about, or the team thinks the community is unimportant and doesn’t need detailed updates. No matter which it is, it’s not good news for holders.

What’s even more unsettling is that some key data has disappeared from the reports. In the past, they would still mention things like “community size grew by X%” and “the number of developers increased by Y,” but now those figures are gone. In their place are vague expressions like “the community continues to grow” and “developers responded enthusiastically.” What does “responded enthusiastically” even mean? So enthusiastic that not even one third-party case study can be seen? @NewtonProtocol

I saw a post in the community from an old user saying he had sent three emails to the project team asking about development progress, and none of them got a reply. The weekly reports are getting more and more vague, and direct questions still go unanswered. This situation has continued for several weeks now. If they can’t even handle basic communication well, everyone can tell what the project team’s attitude toward the community really is.

The project team’s silence is more unsettling than any bad news. If progress were going smoothly, they would be eager to tell you. This kind of attitude of “reporting the good and not the bad” can only be understood as there being no good news to report. Once the weekly reports become detailed again and the data becomes transparent again, I’ll consider increasing my position in Newton. At this stage, I feel like even the project team itself has little confidence in the progress.
#newt $NEWT