By Guest 
Following the recent 600 million BABY token airdrop by the Babylon staking protocol, over $21 million worth of Bitcoin was unstaked from the platform within 24 hours.
On April 4, Mononaut, a developer at Bitfeed, reported that 256 Bitcoins were withdrawn from Babylon’s staking protocol, incurring a total transaction fee of 1.35 BTC and occupying approximately one-third of a Bitcoin block’s space.
Babylon Users Rush Out $21M in BTC After Airdrop
Babylon’s co-founder, Fisher Yu, explained that, unlike Ethereum and Solana, staking on the Bitcoin network doesn’t yield rewards in its native token. Instead, users receive rewards in the native tokens of the blockchain their Bitcoin helps secure.
The airdrop allocated 600 million BABY tokens (6% of the total supply) to early participants, including 30 million tokens to Pioneer Pass NFT holders and 5 million tokens to open-source contributors. The remaining tokens were distributed among eligible stakers from the protocol’s first phase.
In response to the airdrop, the OKX exchange listed the BABY/USDT trading pair in its pre-market futures, allowing traders to speculate on the token’s future price before its spot market debut. Binance Futures also announced the commencement of pre-market perpetual contracts for BABYUSDT on April 5, 2025, with up to 5x leverage.
Kevin He, co-founder of Bitlayer, views the significant Bitcoin unstaking as typical short-term market behavior, representing initial capital redemption. He noted that the high transaction fees are due to Babylon’s initial design and don’t impact its long-term value.