been going through babylon's actual staking-script docs on github instead of trusting summaries this time, and honestly the mechanism is weirder than i expected. the slashing transaction gets presigned by the staker the moment they delegate the fraction that goes to the burn address is set by babylon genesis chain parameters at signing time, baked into a bitcoin transaction that can't be edited after.
so here's the tension. the docs say flat out these values are chain-governed, meaning they can change. but nobody's existing presigned transaction updates when they do wait, "updates" isn't even the right word, it just can't, that's not how signed bitcoin tx's work. old delegations keep whatever fraction was live the day they signed. new ones get whatever's current. same violation, same finality provider, two different penalties, and the only reason is which week you delegated in.
i'll give @BabylonLabs_io credit for one thing though
the covenant committee genuinely can't touch funds outside what's presigned, that part holds up under real scrutiny. this isn't a flaw in that base design at all. it's just what happens after, once a parameter actually changes.
so is there a migration path that re-syncs old delegations to a new slash parameter, or does the fraction just permanently split by cohort the day it changes? $BABY #baby 🔒