Here is a number that sounds unambiguously good: Babylon's BitVM3 upgrade takes a Bitcoin vault dispute that used to cost more than 15,000 dollars under BitVM2 and brings the on-chain portion down to somewhere around 9 dollars, with a simple challenge transaction costing about 20 cents. That is roughly the difference between hiring a lawyer and buying a coffee. The obvious read is that Trustless Bitcoin Vaults just made bitcoin backed DeFi accessible to anyone, not only whales who could stomach five figure dispute costs.
I do not think that read is complete. The cost did not disappear, it moved. Setting up the garbled circuit that makes BitVM3 possible requires sharing roughly 5 terabytes of data and can take several days of compute, a one time cost per setup but a serious one, and someone has to run and maintain that infrastructure to keep TBV's challenge system live and honest. That is not a cost an individual bitcoin holder absorbs casually. It is a cost that favors whoever already has server capacity, technical staff and patience, the same profile of well capitalized operator that runs large scale validator or Lightning routing infrastructure today.
So does BitVM3 democratize access, or quietly re-concentrate it. Both, depending which side of the trade you sit on. Babylon is not making bitcoin backed DeFi cheap for everyone alike, it is making deposits cheap while raising the bar to operate the infrastructure, and which effect wins for decentralization is not answered by the cost chart.
@BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby $BTW
I do not think that read is complete. The cost did not disappear, it moved. Setting up the garbled circuit that makes BitVM3 possible requires sharing roughly 5 terabytes of data and can take several days of compute, a one time cost per setup but a serious one, and someone has to run and maintain that infrastructure to keep TBV's challenge system live and honest. That is not a cost an individual bitcoin holder absorbs casually. It is a cost that favors whoever already has server capacity, technical staff and patience, the same profile of well capitalized operator that runs large scale validator or Lightning routing infrastructure today.
So does BitVM3 democratize access, or quietly re-concentrate it. Both, depending which side of the trade you sit on. Babylon is not making bitcoin backed DeFi cheap for everyone alike, it is making deposits cheap while raising the bar to operate the infrastructure, and which effect wins for decentralization is not answered by the cost chart.
@BabylonLabs_io $BABY #baby $BTW