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Babylon Introduces Trustless Bitcoin Vaults for BTC Staking Protocol

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Bitcoin (BTC) project Babylon took another step toward offering a decentralized finance (DeFi) experience on its $5 billion staking protocol akin to that seen elsewhere in the crypto world.

The latest development is the introduction of trustless vaults, designed to allow BTC holders to deposit their tokens without relying on a centralized entity, as outlined in a new white paper shared with CoinDesk on Wednesday.

In DeFi ecosystems, trustless vaults are a form of digital asset storage or management that removes the need for users to trust a central authority or intermediary. Instead, the systems use smart contracts to ensure security and enforce the rules of the vault.

Babylon says its vaults will allow bitcoin to be used as collateral in DeFi applications such as lending and stablecoin issuance, as well as the staking that its protocol provides. Users can also earn yield on their BTC holdings by staking it to support the operation of proof-of-stake networks. They then receive rewards paid in BABY, Babylon’s native token.

The development forms part of the broader movement to utilize the enormous value held in bitcoin to power DeFi activity across other blockchains.

Accounting for over 60% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, bitcoin is worth comfortably more than every other digital asset combined and could prove a far more potent source of blockchain-based fuel than any other crypto in existence.

Existing bridges that allow bitcoin to be deployed on external blockchains rely on centralized third parties. Furthermore, Bitcoin’s scripting language does not allow for covenants — mechanisms that allows specific conditions on how the funds can be spent in the future — although not for a lack of trying from developers. The absence makes it harder to build trustless bridges.

Babylon proposes solving this by providing on-chain vaults, with the stored BTC tied to a specific smart contract protocol on an external chain.

This harnesses BitVM3, the latest evolution of BitVM, a framework for enabling smart contracts on Bitcoin. BitVM3 is designed to improve the efficiency of its predecessor by moving the bulk of computational work off-chain using «garbled circuits,» to make fraud proofs more compact on-chain.

The trustless bitcoin vaults are «programmable, and withdrawals are permitted only when a zero-knowledge proof of a specific smart contract state is verified on the Bitcoin chain,» Babylon said in the abstract of the paper.

«Together with an appropriate Bitcoin scripting design of the vault, this eliminates the need for mutual trust among parties.»

Read More: Crypto Exchange Kraken Adds Bitcoin Staking Via Babylon as BTC Driven DeFi Picks Up

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CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Drops 2.5% as Nearly All Constituents Decline

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CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 4248.74, down 2.5% (-109.09) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday.

One of 20 assets is trading higher.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2025-09-15: vertical

Leaders: AVAX (+0.6%) and BCH (-0.8%).

Laggards: UNI (-9.9%) and LINK (-7.0%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

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Pantera-Backed Solana Treasury Firm Helius Raises $500M, Stock Soars Over 200%

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Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT) announced on Monday it’s raising more than $500 million in a private financing round to create a Solana-focused treasury company.

The vehicle will hold SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, as its reserve asset and aims to expand to more than $1.25 billion via stock warrants tied to the deal, the press release said.

The financing was led by Pantera Capital and Summer Capital, with participation from investors including Animoca Brands, FalconX and HashKey Capital.

Shares of the firm rallied over 200% above $24 in pre-market trading following the announcement. Solana was down 4% over the past 24 hours.

The firm is joining the latest wave of new digital asset treasuries, or DATs, with public companies pivoting to raise funds and buy cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) or SOL.

Helius is set to rival with the recently launched Forward Industries (FORD) with a $1.65 billion war chest backed by Galaxy Digital and others. That firm confirmed on Monday that has already purchased 6.8 million tokens for roughly $1.58 billion last week.

Helius’ plan is to use Solana’s yield-bearing design to generate income on the holdings, earning staking rewards of around 7% as well as deploying tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi) and lending opportunities. Incoming executive chairman Joseph Chee, founder of Summer Capital and a former UBS banker, will lead the firm’s digital asset strategy alongside Pantera’s Cosmo Jiang and Dan Morehead.

«As a pioneer in the digital asset treasury space, having participated in the formation of the strategy at Twenty One Capital (CEP) with Tether, Softbank and Cantor, Bitmine (BMNR) with Tom Lee and Mozayyx as well as EightCo (OCTO) with Dan Ives and Sam Altman, we have built the expertise to set up the pre-eminent Solana treasury vehicle,» Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital, said in a statement.

«There is a real opportunity to drive the flywheel of creating shareholder value that Michael Saylor has pioneered with Strategy by accelerating Solana adoption,» he added.

Read more: Solana Surges as Galaxy Scoops Up Over $700M Tokens From Exchanges

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American Express Introduces Blockchain-Based ‘Travel Stamps’

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American Express has introduced Ethereum-based ‘travel stamps’ to create a commemorative record of travel experiences, as part of the firm’s revamped travel app.

The travel experience tokens, which are technically NFTs (ERC 721 tokens), are minted and stored on Coinbase’s Base network, said Colin Marlowe , VP, Emerging Partnerships at Amex Digital Labs.

The travel stamps, which can be collected anytime a traveler uses their card, are not tradable NTF tokens, Marlowe explained, and neither do they function like blockchain-based loyalty points – at least for the time being.

“It’s a valueless ERC-721, so technically an NFT, but we just didn’t brand it as such. We wanted to speak to it in a way that was natural for the travel experience itself, and so we talk about these things as stamps, and they’re represented as tokens,” Marlowe said in an interview.

“As an identifier and representation of history the stamps could create interesting partnership angles over time. We weren’t trying to sell these or sort of generate any like short term revenue. The angle is to make a travel experience with Amex feel really rich, really different, and kind of set it apart,” he said.

The Amex travel app also includes a range of tools for travels and Centurion Lounge upgrades, the company said.

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