Bitcoin protocol Babylon completed its second staking round on Tuesday, increasing deposits to about 24,000 BTC ($1.5 billion) from about 1,000 BTC previously. The staking round was "duration-based," meaning it lasted for 10 Bitcoin blocks. The uptake could show robust demand for a growing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem atop the 15-year-old Bitcoin blockchain, previously confined to alternative networks like Ethereum and Solana.