Step Aside, Ethereum: Blockchain Project Stacks Wants to Bring Smart Contracts to Bitcoin (source: Coindesk) "Blockchain project Stacks has published a whitepaper showing how a new digital asset called “Stacks bitcoin” (sBTC) can be used to make Bitcoin fully programmable." "Unlike Ethereum or Solana where developers can conjure up all manner of algorithmic machinations – think six-figure gorilla avatars – Bitcoin’s simpler scripting language limits what Bitcoin developers can create on the platform. Stacks, an existing smart contract platform, wants to break through those limitations by introducing a new digital asset derived from Bitcoin" Read the full article

Builder Spotlight: Wow Labz Advait Danke is the Project Lead for Pirates at Wow Labz, one of India's leading turnkey product development companies. Wow Labz is setting out to create a play-and-earn game based on Stacks. In this discussion, we cover the challenges of building a game on the blockchain based in randomness, how their work will help to shape the Stacks ecosystem, the distinction between Web2 and Web3, and more. 👇

🚀 ICYMI: Xverse Launched its Desktop Browser Extension "Xverse, the leading self-custodial wallet for Bitcoin Web3, is proud to announce the launch of its new desktop browser extension. Available for Chrome and currently in beta testing, the extension enables more powerful applications in the Bitcoin ecosystem." Read the full announcement here 👈

ICYMI: Liquidium DeFi launched on mainnet 🚀 Liquidium, the first NFT lending procotol on Stacks, is live on mainnet 🎉 View the Twitter announcement here 👇

Deconstructing sBTC, The Whitepaper By @wbnns "Being able to make Bitcoin fully programmable would unlock defi for all holders. It would be a pivotal moment in the cryptosphere, akin to discovering electricity in a dark age. Or something even more remarkable, like nuclear fission." Read @wbnns' two part deconstruction of the sBTC whitepaper down below 👇 ⭐️ Part one ⭐️ Part two

🍊 Introducing Zest Protocol at Bitcoin Amsterdam 2022 Zest Protocol is the underlying infrastructure that will make decentralised Bitcoin capital markets possible for the first time. We will use the technical breakthroughs that the Stacks programming layer offers to build decentralised capital markets into the Bitcoin blockchain. Read Tycho Onnasch's full article here 👈

👁 Read Bitcoin & Write to Bitcoin - Introducing sBTC With Stacks With the launch of sBTC, the Stacks layer will be the first Bitcoin layer to enable Bitcoin writes, trustless movement of BTC in and out of the layer, while securing transactions by 100% of Bitcoin hash power. Watch the full video 👇

🚨 x10 YoY Stacks Smart Contract Growth in 2022 ✅ The Bitcoin layer Stacks has seen more than 10x YoY growth in Total Contracts Deployed between January and December of this year! ✅ Over 370 virtual Clarity education program participants ✅ Many successful hackathons Read Mariaverse's full thread 👈

The Future of Bitcoin Decentralized Finance With Stacks Will Bitcoin Decentralized Finance thrive in the future? Here from industry leaders in the world of Finance! @FransScholten - Investor @FlowTraders @TychoOnnasch - Co-founder @ZestProtocol @VictorvanEijk1 - Director Institutional Sales @M11Credit Watch the video 👇

🚀 Launch: Liquidium Decentralized Finance The Mainnet for Liquidium is almost here! Borrow against your NFTs on Stacks. Tomorrow, Liquidium will launch on Mainnet. MVP will introduce a treasury-based model. Liquidium will offer loans to users who want to borrow against their NFTs. Read the thread published earlier this month on how Liquidium will launch on Mainnet.

Unlocking Bitcoin’s Full Potential - With sBTC, the First Trustless Bitcoin Peg Unlocking Bitcoin to be a fully programmable, productive asset would finally enable Bitcoin to be the backbone of DeFi and a more secure Web3. sBTC solves the problem of trustlessly writing to Bitcoin, enabling easy movement of Bitcoin in and out of Bitcoin layers. This unlocks hundreds of billions of dollars of latent capital into Web3. But what does this mean? What is a Trustless Peg? Read the full article 👇

Stacks Merchandise To celebrate the approval of the Stacks 2.1 upgrade by the community, all Stacks merchandise is 21% off until Sunday midnight. Find out more about the available Stacks merchandise here 👇

Updates from the Stacks Ecosystem ⭐️ BlockSurvey introduced BlockSurvey 4.0 - Create gated forms & surveys with end to end encryption. Read the tweet thread 👈 ⭐️ StackerDAO Labs introduced Team, a multisig tool for the Bitcoin web3 ecosystem. Now live. Read the tweet thread 👈

ICYMI: Growing the Bitcoin Economy with Bitcoin Layers Introducing sBTC and the ‘Nakamoto’ Release of Stacks sBTC: This paper discusses a trustless two-way Bitcoin peg system: sBTC. This peg system can help us fulfill the rest of the original vision of Stacks by enabling trustless writing to Bitcoin. Stacks Whitepaper: The Nakamoto Release with a Trustless Bitcoin Peg. This paper describes changes to the Stacks Bitcoin layer needed to enable the trustless functioning of the newly proposed sBTC asset described in the first paper as well as faster block times and other improvements. Read the full introduction article here 👇

🗞 Read about Trust Machine's Tycho Onnasch' Zest Protocol introduction to the Bitcoin audience during Bitcoin 2022 (source: Zest Protocol, Tycho Onnasch) "Bitcoin Amsterdam was already a little while ago - in October 2022. Yet after the FTX drama, the case for Zest Protocol has only grown stronger. I gave a talk to share Zest Protocol with the wider world for the first time and to educate Bitcoiners about Bitcoin capital markets." Read the full article 👇

⭐️ ICYMI: It's Official: The #Stacks 2.1 Upgrade is Approved 🤝 Strengthening The Connection to #Bitcoin 🚀 The community voted in favour of the Stacks 2.1 update proposal Stacks 2.1 involves - Stacking Improvements - New Clarity Functions for Parsing and Validating Data - Better Bridges - Decentralized Mining Pools - Pay-to-Anyone Coinbase - Mining with Segwit and Taproot - Bitcoin-native Assets and Smart Contract Control Find out what you can expect in terms of the remaining rollout process and how to stay up to date 👇

🚨 An exciting week for the Stacks community - Stacks Recap ⭐️ sBTC Whitepaper release ⭐️ Stacks (The Nakomoto Release) whitepaper release ⭐️ Stacks 2.1 voting ending What an incredible week for the Stacks community! In case you need a recap: 1️⃣ Find out more on both whitepaper releases on the landing page 👈 2️⃣ Watch Stacks Founder Muneeb Ali explain sBTC on the latest Stacker Chats 👈 3️⃣ Read the introduction blog for the whitepaper releases 👈 📆 Join us in 1 hour for the Twitter spaces recap with Muneeb Ali, Kyle Ellicott & more! Set a reminder here 👈

🚨 Happening today: The '22 Stackies 🏆 Industry highlights & looking ahead for '23 🏆 Community highlights 🏆 Community awards 👇 ⭐️ Best Technical Builder ⭐️ Best Community Builder ⭐️ Most Inspiring Thought Leader ⭐️ Meme Master ⭐️ Favorite Project ⭐️ Project to Watch ⏰ When: In 1 hour 📆 Set a reminder 👇

🚨 JUST IN: the sBTC whitepaper has been released! ⭐️ sBTC: The first truly trustless, non-custodial #Bitcoin peg-out, making Bitcoin a fully programmable and productive asset. 🔗 Stacks Foundation blog post here 👈 🔗 More information & whitepaper here 👈

An Exciting week ahead for the Stacks community 💜 📆 Tomorrow: Join Muneeb Ali together with special guests on Twitter. Set a reminder here 👈 📆 Thursday: Join Stacks on Twitter discussing sBTC & Stacks 2.1! Set a reminder here 👈 📆 Thursday: Join everyone from the Stacks community during the annual Stackies recap, community awards, and looking ahead! Set a reminder here 👈 We you hope will all be there to celebrate this exciting week for Stacks ! Thank you all for being part of this amazing community. Let's continue to grow stronger 🚀

ICYMI: Stacks and the Stacks Ecosystem Post-FTX (Published by the Stacks Foundation team) We’re disappointed and frustrated by the latest events related to FTX and Alameda, but have not been directly impacted by the fallout or resulting liquidity issues. We hope that through collaboration, we can build a more trustworthy Web3 together. Read more 👇

👀 There’s a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity Waiting for You (source: Hiro Systems) Bitcoin dominates the cryptocurrency market, with a 45% market share as of today. To put that dominance into perspective, the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has less than half of Bitcoin’s market share, totalling 18% of the crypto market. Read more 👇

Stacks Website and Hiro wallet are up and running be careful of fake upgrade links that are circulating here or Twitter. Official announcements will come from official accounts and blogs. Please check on discord with verified team as well.

How the Stacks 2.1 Transition Impacts Stacking (Source: Hiro Systems) The day of the Stacks 2.1 upgrade approaches! Sometime around January 17th, if SIP-015 is approved, the network will activate a number of stacking improvements. For developers building apps with stacking capabilities or integrations, the upcoming 2.1 changes to stacking will impact the user experience, and in this post, we will walk through the 2.1 transition so you can understand what will happen and provide a more seamless experience for your users. Read more 👇

✅ SIP (@Stacks Improvement Proposal) Call 🔎 💬 What: Discussing the next SIPs 📅 When: Friday 9nd December - 11am ET 📍Add the SIP call to your calendar Improve #Stacks Together ✊💜

🚨 The last Stacks community call of this year ⏰ Tomorrow: Join us during an exciting discussing about innovation and progression in the Stacks ecosystem 🚀 With great community leaders like the Stacks Advocates leaders, Hero Gamer, the Clarity Education team, the Stacks Chapters and more! Set reminder 👇

Deadlines getting close for the Startup Lab & Accelerator Future development on Bitcoin layer Stacks will enable entrepreneurs to leverage over 300 billion dollar in $BTC capital 🚀 Are you one of those entrepreneurs? 🤔 1️⃣ Create your startup 👈 2️⃣ Scale your startup 👈

ALEX shares Procedure for New Tokenomics Vote & Implementation Should ALEX change from a fixed emissions schedule to dynamic emissions relative to the trading volume on the platform? Read the full article 👇

🚨 Highlighting the current Grant priorities ⭐️ Technologies that leverage the Stacks 2.1 upgrade and/or strengthen the connection between Stacks and Bitcoin ⭐️ Technologies/resources that attract developers & founders to Stacks Read & apply here 👇

🔊 Stacks community! Which builders have contributed the most to the Stacks ecosystem in 2022? 🤔 Fill in the following survey for the annual Stackies awards 🏆 Here ⬇️

🚨 The Stacks community call What are community members building on Stacks? Join the discussion with #Stacks Grants, Residents and chapters 📢 📅 When: December 8th Set a reminder 👇

✅ SIP (@Stacks Improvement Proposal) Call 🔎 with @herogamer21btc 💬 What: Discussing the next SIPs 📅 When: Friday 2nd December - 11am ET 📍Add the SIP call to your calendar Improve Stacks Together ✊💜

👁 Ever heard about BowTiedDeployer building the number one Stacks gamefi project StacksDegens ? He will teach you how to integrate NFTs into your Web app 👇 When: Nov 30 - 4PM (EST) (Tomorrow) Where: Add to your calendar 👇

Developer Spotlight: Brice Dobry, Hiro Brice Dobry is a Senior Software Engineer at Hiro Systems. Prior to joining the team at Hiro, Brice had no prior experience with Blockchains. Today, he's 1 year in with the team at Hiro and at the forefront of building on Stacks. In our discussion, he talks about how he got started and how you can too. Read the full article 👇

🗳 Reminder: Vote for Stacks 2.1 Every Stacks holder should vote for the new Stacks upgrade 🚀 Stacks 2.1 Stacks 2.1 brings stacking improvements, Smart Contract language improvements, better bridges, decentralized mining pools, Bitcoin native Assets. More on Stacks 2.1 Watch the tutorial video for voting here 👇

🧐 What is Blockchain Naming System? Published by Xverse on November 21, 2022 During the first week of November 2022, the surge in transaction volume for domain names with .btc reportedly shot up to 260%. Why? BNS is short for Bitcoin Name Space or Blockchain Naming System, with .btc being a user-owned, blockchain-powered version of Web 2.0’s DNS. Read the full article 👇

🚀 Stacks Foundation Grants Program Status 🙋‍♀️ 21 Applications in review for Cohort 19 🟠 7 completing initial deliverable 🟢 6 Completing milestone deliverable ✅ 1 completing final deliverable View the full dashboard here 👇

👁 Learn to implement NFTs into Web Apps Stacks Degens developer "Deployer" will teach you how to implement an NFT into your Web App during this free workshop 🚀 Will you be the next Stacks Degens or Sigle in the Stacks ecosystem? 🤔 📆 When: November 30, 4PM (EST) 📍 Where: Add the event to your calendar

Introducing: State of the Chain #1 Published by Babo on November 21, 2022 1️⃣ Introducing Stacks on Chain core features 2️⃣ Network Overview 3️⃣ Decentralized app catalogue Read the first release here 👇

🚨 Stacks and the Stacks Ecosystem Post-FTX Published by Stacks Foundation Team on November 21, 2022 "Given the latest market developments and our commitment to transparency, we’re providing an update on the status of the Stacks Foundation and indexing related responses from other organizations operating within the Stacks Ecosystem. We’re disappointed and frustrated by the latest events related to FTX and Alameda, but have not been directly impacted by the fallout or resulting liquidity issues. We hope that through collaboration, we can build a more trustworthy Web3 together." Read the full article here 👇

✅ SIP (@Stacks Improvement Proposal) Call 🔎 with @herogamer21btc 💬 What: Open Discussion 📅 When: TODAY - 11am ET (Starting in 1 hour) 📍Add the SIP call to your calendar Join the conversation! Help improve #Stacks ✊💜

Hiro Systems: Release Roundup - October 2022 In October we shipped a number of updates across our products, including API v6, the ability to search by .btc name in the Explorer, a new re-architected VS Code extension, and our team continued to work toward code completion of Stacks 2.1. Let’s jump in. (full Hiro article)

Moving forward from this week in crypto (Gamma article An opinion piece by sarah.btc) 🏦 The role of centralized entities in decentralized territory 🔑 Ownership over your assets ⛓ NFTs onboard users to self-custody solutions 🔓 Security best practices "Ownership in the land of decentralization and Web3.0 doesn’t mean buying and holding crypto. It means having exclusive and secure access to your assets that nobody — especially not a centralized custodian — can take away from you."

5 ways Stacks 2.1 will mobilize the Bitcoin economy ⭐️ Continuous Stacking Cycles ⭐️ Receive Stacking Rewards Using Any Bitcoin Address ⭐️ BTC <> STX Swaps ⭐️ Bridges to Other Chains ⭐️ Sending Assets to BTC Addresses 👇 Read the full Xverse article 👇

📅 This week's event calendar 👀 Starting in 1 hour: Join the Xverse team and the Stacks SIP Resident @Hero Gamer ⚡️ during the Stacks 2.1 Voting walkthrough here 👈 👀 Learn how to integrate NFTs into Web Apps with Stacks Degens Developer "The Deployer" here 👈 👀 How to create, grow and scale your startup with Trevor Owens, Albert Liang and Jake Blockchain here 👈

Hey all! I wrote a proposal to standardize sending BTC (and other assets) to .BTC names - think of it as "pay to name" I broke it down in a Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/larrysalibra/status/1592191941336518656 There are more details in the blog post and a link to the draft of the proposed standard on github: https://www.newinternetlabs.com/blog/standardizing-names-for-bitcoin-addresses/ I’d love your feedback on the thread in the Stacks forum: https://forum.stacks.org/t/sending-receiving-btc-with-names-a-draft-standard/14003?u=larry

🔔 Stacks 2.1 Review & Voting 🔔 Watch back all @Stacks Improvement Proposal calls on #Stacks 2.1 ⤵️ 1️⃣ Codex reviewing Stacks 2.1 2️⃣ Hero Gamer voting walkthrough 3️⃣ Jude Nelson Stacks 2.1 Q&A Here 👈 How to Vote? 1️⃣ Go to Website 2️⃣ Click Vote Now 3️⃣ Connect Wallet 4️⃣ Enter the STX amount 5️⃣ Pick Yes or No 6️⃣ Send TX 7️⃣ Claim badge

🚨 Grants Program funding application closing on Monday! Do you want to add value to the Stacks community? We provide support for developers, designers, community leaders, and more through grants ⤵️ 1️⃣ Read the GitHub repository 2️⃣ Apply for a Grant 👈 Grants Cohort 18 & 19 Update The GitHub board shows you all projects currently active in the Program. Remember: you can add the Launchpad to your watchlist by clicking on the 👁 View current Grant cohort 18 projects and cohort 19 applications 👈

The Stacks community delivers 👇🚀 ✅ @MattySTX Tokenomics guide ✅ @ileanamalacrino @Themintery Cohort 2 ✅ @StacksAdvoxDAO Cohort 1 launch ✅ @StacksATX Local Clarity cohort 👀 Much more! Watch the full Stacks Community Update Call 👇

Stacks 2.1 Upgrade is Approaching — Enhanced Connection between Stacks & Bitcoin | Written by GM Chung Just as the Ethereum ecosystem has grown through this year's the merge, various innovations & changes are taking place on Bitcoin as well. In particular, Stacks is injecting new utility into Bitcoin by introducing a smart contract layer without modifying Bitcoin. Expected to be at the end of this year, the Stacks 2.1 upgrade is the biggest update since the launch of the Stacks 2.0 mainnet, and will provide the foundation for a stronger relationship between Stacks chain and Bitcoin chain. In the article below, you can find the major changes and improvements the upcoming upgrade will bring and how it will affect. https://medium.com/despread-global/stacks-2-1-upgrade-is-approaching-enhanced-connection-between-stacks-bitcoin-bc7e0aa37c67 https://twitter.com/gmchung94/status/1590601841297231872