Zest Protocol’s BTCz brings Babylon BTC yield to Stacks

Zest Protocol integrates Babylon on the Stacks L2 to create the most secure staked BTC asset in the industry, BTCz.

George Town, Cayman Islands, 5 September – Zest Protocol is a Bitcoin DeFi protocol backed by industry heavyweights like Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, Binance Labs, and Stacks co-creator Muneeb Ali’s Trust Machines. Zest Protocol’s mission is to redefine Bitcoin DeFi by enabling every BTC holder to deploy their BTC securely on-chain. Today: Zest Protocol announces the launch of BTCz, allowing users to deploy their BTC to earn a BTC yield. BTCz holders earn a staking yield through the Babylon Protocol, enhanced by the unique security properties of the Stacks L2.

Babylon has pioneered trustless Bitcoin staking which enables BTC holders to earn yield through validating PoS systems in a non-custodial way. Mainnet phase 1 launched on August 22nd where a cap of 1000 BTC was reached within just 6 blocks.

Zest Protocol brings the best of the Stacks L2 and Babylon together to advance the security level of the BTC staking experience. 

As the leading Bitcoin L2, Stacks provides unique security features to Zest Protocol. Stacks smart contracts have the unique ability to read Bitcoin state, allowing the contracts to independently verify changes to Bitcoin balances. This allows Zest Protocol’s BTC staking contract on the Stacks L2 to independently verify BTC stake on Bitcoin L1 through the Babylon staking protocol, without relying on a third party oracle or messaging system. This combined with Babylon’s trustless design lays the foundation for BTCz to be the most secure staked BTC derivative. 

In addition to leveraging the Stacks L2’s read access to Bitcoin state for security, Zest Protocol’s BTCz will progressively decentralise towards the Stacks sBTC design to create a decentralised and permissionless peg. Users will also be able to deposit sBTC to earn a yield through BTCz.

The Zest Protocol team has a long history of building Bitcoin applications and infrastructure. The Zest Protocol co-founders were among the first hires at Trust Machines: the leading Bitcoin infrastructure company led by Stacks co-creator Muneeb Ali. While at Trust Machines, the Zest Protocol cofounders played a key role in the design and development of sBTC.

“With the upcoming sBTC launch in Q4 of 2024, Zest Protocol’s BTCz is set to become sBTC’s yield-bearing cousin on Stacks,” said Tycho Onnasch, Founder of Zest Protocol. “A yielding BTC asset like BTCz paired with sBTC will be critical for secure Bitcoin DeFi adoption, built by the engineers behind Stacks’ sBTC. This is just the start of the roll-out of our BTC yield products on Zest Protocol Earn.”

“We are excited to see Zest Protocol leverage our technology to enhance Bitcoin yield generation on Stacks. We look forward to observing how this innovation contributes to the broader Bitcoin ecosystem.”  Fisher Yu, Co-founder, Babylon. 

About Zest Protocol

Zest Protocol is a DeFi protocol built for Bitcoin. The protocol strives to create a vibrant DeFi ecosystem around BTC the asset. Zest Protocol recently raised a $3.5m Seed Round led by Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, with participation from Binance Labs, Flow Traders, Trust Machines, Asymmetric, and many more (more information in Reuters article). For more information, visit www.zestprotocol.com.

About Babylon

Babylon is a project that designs Bitcoin security sharing protocols with a vision of building a Bitcoin-secured decentralised world. Its latest development is the world’s first trustless and self-custodial Bitcoin staking protocol, which enables Bitcoin holders to stake their BTC on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems such as PoS chains, L2s, Data Availability (DA) layers, etc, enabling them to earn yield without the need for third-party custody, bridge solutions, or wrapping services. Babylon’s approach combines the high security and wide adoption of Bitcoin with the efficiency and scalability of PoS systems, increasing Bitcoin’s utility.

About Stacks

Stacks is a Bitcoin L2 that enables smart contracts and decentralised applications to use Bitcoin as a secure base layer. The 2024 Nakamoto and sBTC releases will bring faster speeds and transactions backed by 100% Bitcoin finality. ‍Stacks is the current leading Bitcoin L2 by developer traction and market cap and is poised to help unlock Bitcoin and its $500B in passive capital as a fully programmable, productive asset. The Stacks (STX) token, used as gas on the L2, was the first to undergo an SEC-qualified sale in the United States. The project explicitly decentralised with the mainnet launch in 2021. In the Stacks ecosystem, there are currently 30+ contributing entities including a non-profit Stacks Foundation, a developer tooling company Hiro, Xverse, Trust Machines, Mechanism, Bitcoin L2 Labs, Zest Protocol, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, and more.