I'm excited to co-host this podcast with @Cryptocito Double Down is our podcast name and highlights our belief in Bitcoin and the industry. Every couple of weeks we'll bring on interesting guests and talk through the latest updates from their company, the industry and how they view Web3 over the coming years. There's a lot to unpack and understand, it feels like every week we have a new update that get's brushed aside but eventually all of these announcements will equate to mass adoption in some way shape or form. Tune into the first episode that just dropped, new episodes with the first guests are coming soon.

Native bitcoin on Aave. Purists in shambles now that orange coin can just do things.

Booooom 💣

Very cool to see native BTC as collateral on Aave. Babylon's temp check PASSED to deploy two Aave V4 spokes where you borrow against BTC that never leaves Bitcoin chain. So no wrapping, no bridging, no custodians. How it works, as I understand it: - You lock BTC into a Taproot vault on Bitcoin. The script is fixed at creation: who can ever redeem BTC, and which Ethereum contract decides who currently holds that right. - Aave mints vaultBTC against it, a transfer-restricted ERC-20 for accounting. You borrow stables or any other asset on a dedicated V4 spoke. - Repay the loan, submit a ZK proof of repayment on Bitcoin, get your coins back. But how do you liquidate on slow Bitcoin mainnet? Nothing gets liquidated on Bitcoin in real time. Liquidators liquidate you on Ethereum, then instantly swap the seized vault for WBTC from the Aave hub at a small premium. Permissioned arbitrageurs later buy the escrowed vault, repay the WBTC, and redeem the actual BTC on Bitcoin through a fraud-proof window that takes days. And no, you can't watch the price dump and move your BTC to another wallet. Locking means the coins sit in a UTXO that only the vault script can release. Your Ledger txs can't move BTC same as you can't spend from a multisig alone. Claims without a valid proof get challenged and blocked during the fraud window. This is super cool and 2022/23 CT would be full with discussions about it. Also 'trustless' does some work here mainly because arbitrageurs are a permissioned entity. Babylon has ~51k BTC ($3.1B) staked natively, so demand for skipping wrappers is here. Personally, I love the idea of native BTC but wBTC risk is replaced by experimental risks in the meantime.

BREAKING: Vitalik Buterin just disclosed something worth paying attention to. 90% of his net worth is in ETH. The remaining $40,000,000 allocated to open-source biotech and software. The Ethereum Foundation holds just 0.16% of all ETH. Most other foundations hold 10-50%. The man who built Ethereum. Has more skin in the game than almost any founder in crypto history. And the foundation behind it holds less than almost any comparable project. That combination of founder conviction and foundation restraint. Is rare in this industry.

바빌론의 거버넌스 토큰 $BABY 업비트 원화 마켓에 상장합니다. 트러스트리스 비트코인 볼트의 채택은 베이비 토큰 유틸리티의 강화로 이어집니다.

Institutions will be aavemaxxing with v4.

🤌🏼🔥

Aave v4 continues its security-first launch with deposits and borrows scaling nicely

Don't sleep on @aave V4 Minimal noise , maximum impact

One small step for Babylon, one big step for Bitcoin

Native BTC borrowing on Aave v4 testnet without wrapping or bridging is a massive step forward 🔥 BTC holders can finally use their Bitcoin as real collateral while keeping custody. This is actual Bitcoin DeFi, not wrapped token theater. Huge for making BTC productive capital.

Like any new protocol, Aave V4 needed time to mature after launch. It is now entering its next phase of growth and development.

Aave is joining the Transparency Alliance as a founding member alongside @coinbase, @BinanceUS, @Anchorage, @GSR_io, @ripple, and others. Together, we’re working to make the Token Transparency Framework the standard for token market disclosures.

This is the core thesis 🔥 Bitcoin’s liquidity, institutional adoption, global acceptance & relatively low volatility make it the perfect collateral asset. The only missing piece was trustless infrastructure and Babylon is building exactly that. When BTC can finally be used as real collateral without giving up custody, the entire DeFi and BTCFi space explodes. @baby_fisherman nailed it. #Bitcoin #Babylon #BTCFi #Crypto

This is the real differentiator 🔥 No bridge = no single point of failure. Most designs rely on one verifier or bridge that can be compromised. Babylon removes that entire risk layer. Native BTC as collateral, fully self custodial that’s the cleanest BTCFi design we’ve seen yet. This is why Babylon @babylonlabs_io is becoming one of the most important pieces of infrastructure for Bitcoin in DeFi. What do you think is “no bridge” the biggest advantage here? #Babylon #BTCFi #Bitcoin $baby $io $render $near $inj $tao $troll $teslafc

🚨 Big Development for Babylon & BTCFi 🔥 Babylon @babylonlabs_io has officially submitted a proposal to integrate Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) with Aave V4. This means users will be able to use native Bitcoin directly as collateral on Aave no wrapping, no bridging, and no extra custody risk. This could be a massive step for BTCFi. Over $4B BTC is already staked on Babylon. If approved, that capital can flow into Aave for lending and borrowing. Real utility real Bitcoin liquidity = potential game changer. #Babylon #BTCFi #Aave #Bitcoin

For years BTC in DeFi has been simple. Wrap it. There are currently ~115k BTC behind WBTC = ~0.55% of the BTC supply. Nothing. Bitcoiners didn’t like the wrap option. This is a fact. Babylon Spoke could represent the first real use case of native BTC as productive collateral without any custodian compromise. Babylon’s staking protocol already shows there’s real demand for the trustless model. ~52k BTC ($4B) staked natively, almost half of the entire WBTC supply, with BTC never leaving Bitcoin. Extending that same self-custodial approach from staking to lending is the next step. And V4 is the perfect match. Aave will win.

TVL is not the best metric. Loan books in DeFi are quite strong x.com/StaniKulechov/status/2…

Today we published a temp check on the @aave governance forum: Babylon Trustless BTC Vault Integration on Aave v4. The temp check proposes two new Aave v4 Spokes to onboard native BTC as collateral via Trustless Bitcoin Vaults and seeks community input. governance.aave.com/t/temp-c…