A16z Crypto purchased $15M worth of BABY tokens to support Babylon’s development of trustless Bitcoin Vaults (BTCVaults), enabling native BTC to be used as onchain collateral without custodians or wrapping. The funding brings Babylon’s total disclosed raise to $103M.

Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z crypto, has purchased $15 million worth of BABY, the native token of Bitcoin infrastructure project Babylon, in a token deal aimed at funding the buildout of Babylon’s new trustless Bitcoin Vaults (BTCVaults). The purchase is structured as a direct token acquisition rather than a traditional equity round and lifts Babylon’s disclosed total fundraising to about $103 million, including an earlier $18 million Series A and a subsequent $70 million Paradigm-led round. Following the announcement, BABY saw a double‑digit percentage price move intraday, reflecting heightened market attention to the project’s attempt to extend Bitcoin’s role in on‑chain finance. Babylon began as a Bitcoin staking protocol designed to let BTC holders earn yield while keeping coins on the Bitcoin base layer, and is now expanding into Bitcoin‑native lending and collateralization via its BTCVaults architecture. BTCVaults are intended to let users lock native BTC on the Bitcoin network and have that position recognized as verifiable collateral on other chains without using custodial intermediaries, wrapped BTC, or bridges, relying instead on cryptographic techniques such as witness encryption, garbled circuits, and zero‑knowledge proofs to enforce conditions and prove that BTC remains locked. This model targets a long‑standing bottleneck in DeFi: today, most Bitcoin used in decentralized finance is represented by custodial or multi‑sig wrapped assets, while the vast majority of the more than $1–1.4 trillion in Bitcoin market value sits idle off‑chain. By enabling self‑custodied BTC to serve as programmable collateral, Babylon aims to support applications such as lending, stablecoin issuance, and derivatives that draw directly on Bitcoin’s security guarantees, with upcoming integrations like a planned Aave v4 “spoke” for native BTC collateral positioned as early test cases of this infrastructure. {"entities":["a16z crypto","Andreessen Horowitz","Babylon","Babylon Labs","BABY","BTCVaults","Bitcoin","BTC","David Tse","Fisher Yu","Paradigm","Aave","Aave v4"]} json { "brief": "Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z crypto, has purchased $15 million worth of BABY, the native token of Bitcoin infrastructure project Babylon, in a token deal aimed at funding the buildout of Babylon’s new trustless Bitcoin Vaults (BTCVaults). The purchase is structured as a direct token acquisition rather than a traditional equity round and lifts Babylon’s disclosed total fundraising to about $103 million, including an earlier $18 million Series A and a subsequent $70 million Paradigm-led round. Following the announcement, BABY saw a double‑digit percentage price move intraday, reflecting heightened market attention to the project’s attempt to extend Bitcoin’s role in on‑chain finance.\n\nBabylon began as a Bitcoin staking protocol designed to let BTC holders earn yield while keeping coins on the Bitcoin base layer, and is now expanding into Bitcoin‑native lending and collateralization via its BTCVaults architecture. BTCVaults are intended to let users lock native BTC on the Bitcoin network and have that position recognized as verifiable collateral on other chains without using custodial intermediaries, wrapped BTC, or bridges, relying instead on cryptographic techniques such as witness encryption, garbled circuits, and zero‑knowledge proofs to enforce conditions and prove that BTC remains locked. This model targets a long‑standing bottleneck in DeFi: today, most Bitcoin used in decentralized finance is represented by custodial or multi‑sig wrapped assets, while the vast majority of the more than $1–1.4 trillion in Bitcoin market value sits idle off‑chain. By enabling self‑custodied BTC to serve as programmable collateral, Babylon aims to support applications such as lending, stablecoin issuance, and derivatives that draw directly on Bitcoin’s security guarantees, with upcoming integrations like a planned Aave v4 “spoke” for native BTC collateral positioned as early test cases of this infrastructure.", "entities": [ "a16z crypto", "Andreessen Horowitz", "Babylon", "Babylon Labs", "BABY", "BTCVaults", "Bitcoin", "BTC", "David Tse", "Fisher Yu", "Paradigm", "Aave", "Aave v4" ] }

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Why a16z Crypto Just Bought $15M In BABY Tokens To Build ... (yellow.com)
• Babylon secures $15M from a16z to expand Bitcoin staking (crypto.news)
• BTCUSD - Babylon receives $15M from a16z Crypto to ... - ADVFN (mx.advfn.com)
• Silicon Valley's leading venture capital (VC) Andrierson Horowitz ... (mk.co.kr)
• Babylon receives $15M from a16z Crypto to expand Bitcoin-native ... (tradingview.com)

Explore the topic

• Vaults
• BTC
• Onchain