Today I am digging deeper into
@BabylonLabs_io and their approach to Bitcoin staking - the main narrative is whether BTC can be used in PoS without needing to bridge, wrap or give control to a third party.
The covenant emulation mechanism makes sense to me. But what really made me stop and think was looking at another angle: the โcustodialโ feeling that many people have when they see a committee signing together.
I did not just read the documents, but looked at the actual operational logic of the design.
The committee can only sign spending paths that are hardcoded in the Bitcoin script.
They cannot create new destinations.
They cannot move BTC arbitrarily.
Hold on - then why do some people still feel a custody smell?
That is the real gap that made me think.
I am not saying Babylon has a flaw here.
The covenant emulation mechanism still works exactly as designed.
The committee does not hold the funds, cannot steal the stakerโs BTC and the key remains in the stakerโs hands.
The question lies in whether the deeper issue - liveness and coordination - is actually solved.
This reminds me of the difference between โsomeone holding your assetsโ and โyou still own the assets but have to wait for a group of people to coordinate in order to complete an action.โ
The change in the trust model is very clear:
Old: โI trust you will not take my money.โ
New: โI only need enough honest members who are willing to sign the correct valid request.โ
That is clearly a major step forward compared to traditional multisig. But it still leaves a gap between non-custodial and absolute trust-minimized.
Can a 6/9 committee maintain readiness in every situation?
Or is this simply a reasonable trade-off to give Bitcoin more programmability?
#baby $BABY $memes $BLESS #ColdcardFlawDrains594BTC #KOSPIWorstMonthlyDropSince2008 โ
#ustocanceliranattacksubjecttodeal โ
#secpausesqbtcbitcoinoptionsapproval