In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Mingchao (Fisher) Yu, co-founder and CTO of Babylon Labs, a non-custodial staking protocol that uses the underlying value of Bitcoin to secure a variety of proof-of-stake networks. Together, they dive into Bitcoin's previous limitations in providing liquidity to Defi protocols, how Babylon aims to turn Bitcoin into a first-class staking asset, Babylon's approach to bridging into other ecosystems, the team's multi-phased approach to launching its protocol, and so much more.

Join them as they discuss:

How Bitcoin can secure PoS chains trustlessly
The journey from 1,000 BTC to $3.3B+ TVL
Building truly decentralized security markets
The roadmap for Bitcoin's evolution in DeFi
Uniting traditional finance with crypto through BTC
The future of cross-chain security sharing
Real institutional adoption insights

And much more!

Fisher's career has spanned a variety of roles from deep technology systems engineering to leadership in blockchain innovations at Babylon, where he's currently steering efforts to integrate Bitcoin more fully into the decentralized finance landscape. Before Babylon Labs, Fisher was a managing director at Hash Laboratories, senior staff research engineer at Dolby Laboratories, and senior system engineer at InterfereX Communications.

Episode Highlights:

[00:01:57] Introduction to Fisher Yu and Babylon Labs' non-custodial staking protocol
[00:16:32] Babylon's founding story and origin in late 2021
[00:17:06] Evolution from merge mining to Bitcoin staking solution
[00:23:11] Three target ecosystems: Cosmos, Ethereum rollups, Bitcoin rollups
[00:27:27] Babylon's three-phase launch strategy
[00:38:13] Current adoption metrics: 66.8K+ stakers, 74K delegations
[00:42:57] Geographic restrictions and regulatory considerations
[00:47:55] Discussion on Bitcoin centralization concerns
[00:50:19] 2025 roadmap and vision for "Bitcoin DeFi genesis"
[00:51:56] Contact information and community channels

Previous guests include: Rusty Matveev, Chief Strategy Officer at Calaxy; Andrew Lawrence, CEO and Co-Founder of Censo; Zac Townsend, CEO and Co-Founder of Meanwhile; Jesper Johansen, CEO and Co-Founder of Northstake; Tama Churchouse, COO of Cumberland Labs; Holly Wood of Boson Protocol; Sid Powell of Maple Finance; Chad Barraford of THORChain; and many others.

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