Bitcoin Builders Stay Bullish, Q2 Recap and Report

July 28, 2022

Hey there, here’s your sign to stop doom scrolling. Like, now. We know it’s chaotic (to put it mildly) in the world of crypto, but we think you’ve had enough of that. This newsletter is your oasis in the crypto desert, the cozy ski lodge of your crypto winter.

As usual, we’ve captured highlights from the last quarter of building on Bitcoin. Before we jump into that, though, consider this report from The Block as further framing of the immense opportunity in front of projects focused on Bitcoin. The report, commissioned by Trust Machines, covers why Bitcoin is a stable foundation, offers a comparison of various Bitcoin layers, and outlines potential challenges and catalysts for further adoption.

In our opinion, it highlights what many in the Stacks, Lightning, and other Bitcoin-based projects have been saying all along; that Bitcoin is the foundation you want to be building on.

"You're going to want to build your buildings on a solid footing of granite, so bitcoin is made to last forever — high integrity, very durable." Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy

And it’s not just a one-way relationship. Layers around Bitcoin are positive for Bitcoin itself, as highlighted in the report; “Bitcoin-based protocols, which increase the networks scalability and utility, are poised to expand its use cases, broaden its user base, and create a larger ecosystem that would generate more aggregate transaction fees - a positive for the network’s economic sustainability.”

If you’re new here and are interested in how you can get started building on Bitcoin, the Stacks community is happy to be your guide. Join us on your favorite channel, come to an event, check out this developer guide, read about the tradeoffs of different Bitcoin layers, see what’s next for the network, or just hop in Discord and say hello!

Mitchell Cuevas and the Stacks Foundation Team

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🏗️ Building on Bitcoin

🚀 Bitcoin DeFi

📈 Stacks Stats

🙌 Stacks Ventures Demo Days

🦄 NFTs secured by Bitcoin

🛣️ Stacks Roadmap

🥳 Events, Conferences, & Parties

➕ Much more

🏗️ Building on Bitcoin

VCs are pouring millions of dollars into startups expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem through dApps.

🙌 Bitcoin + New Talent

A former Coinbase COO and senior attorney at the FTC have made the jump to Trust Machines, a bitcoin-focused developer

Hiro, the go-to developer tools company for builders of the Bitcoin economy, announced the appointment of Julia Austin to their Board of Directors.

⚡Lightning and RSK

Headlined by Taproot support, the Lightning team announced lnd 0.15 beta, their first release of 2022! You can find more detail in the full release notes.

Today we’re excited to announce Taro, a new Taproot-powered protocol for issuing assets on the bitcoin blockchain that can be transferred over the…

In this article, the team at RSK takes a long-term view of Bitcoin. What does Bitcoin look like in the year 2030? Will it continue to be the world’s leading and most reliable crypto asset? Will more nation-states adopt Bitcoin as legal tender?

🚀 Bitcoin DeFi

Bitcoin is the most secure network in human history. Without the security and immutability unique to Bitcoin, DeFi will never achieve mass adoption.

From stablecoins to yield farming, learn about the basics of DeFi.

📈 Stacks Stats

Community Leader Louise Nakamoto gave us a rundown on the Stacks State of the Network. Check out the full tweet thread here.

  • STX Addresses 417K to 444,490

  • Smart Contracts 3,235 to 5,127

  • TVL 478M STX to 524M

  • BTC Rewards 1127 BTC to 1770 BTC

  • Entities 45 to 72

  • Trading Pairs 38 to 49

  • Transactions crossed 1.5M from 1M

  • Three new SIPs got approved: SIP 016 Metadata for Tokens , SIP 018 Arbitrary messages, SIP 019 Notifications for Token Metadata Updates

Try decentralized apps built on Stacks, secured by Bitcoin. There are apps for finance, collectibles, blogging and many more.

🙌 Stacks Ventures Demo Days

Stacks Ventures hosted a Demo Day introducing 24 new startups building on Bitcoin to the world. If you missed it, check out the recordings below to learn more about the new DeFi, NFT, DAO, and CityCoin use cases emerging on Stacks.

Meet the teams that are building real companies powered by Bitcoin. From DAOs, to DeFi, to gaming, and much more, this class is poised to help Bitcoin become a mainstay as a foundational layer for leading companies.

The Stacks Ventures startup accelerator for the Stacks Bitcoin layer-2 solution is working with 12 startups that wish to add functionality to the CityCoins platform.

We are introducing “Co-Farming with ALEX” exclusively for the STX/ALEX LP tokens that will be unlocking during cycle #32 and beyond. Co-Farming rewards our most loyal community members that have been…

🦄 NFTs secured by Bitcoin

Applications for Cohort 2 of the Mintery are open until July 31st. If you're thinking about creating an NFT, it's a can't miss.

The Mintery helps artists thrive with Bitcoin-powered NFTs; meet the artists from the inaugural class, they've taken the Stacks community by storm.

The NFT collections we know, love, and collect all have an amazing artist at their heart. This collection celebrates "The Artists Behind the Projects".

MultiPass NFT Passport is an App for NFT unlockable content. Multipass provides utility to NFTs. Powered by HeyLayer.

🎥 Crash Punks Announces its Animated Series

🛣️ Stacks Tech and Ecosystem Initiatives

Audience and stakeholders of all different types need to know where the network is headed, so we set out to create one place where ‘roadmap’-related content can be collected and displayed. At a glance, you should be able to tell what major improvements are coming up as well as get a sense for smaller tooling, team, or other more specific updates.

Hyperchains come with the promise of high throughput, low latency workloads, so you can build fast and reliable experiences for your users TL;DR: We are live on Testnet and on target to launch our first NFT use case on Testnet in July 2022!

With the release of micro-stacks v1 comes many new improvements and framework libraries for React, Vue, Svelte, and Solidjs.

In a bear market, the Stacks Ecosystem is thriving while Stacks Foundation programming expands.

Stacks community members now have access to the flagship EmpireDAO location in NYC as an in-person resource. EmpireDAO serves as a co-working space but will also offer unique amenities like a recording studio, making it a welcoming space for artists and creators as well.

Our first cohort of residents is focused on key areas of the ecosystem, including governance, DAOs, token community management, NFTs, and Stacking. Below is an update from each resident and their respective projects.

Today, thanks to the Stacks community, it gets an updated look and feel that better reflects the importance of the language and will serve it well as adoption continues to grow.

Help us test a preview build of the Hiro Wallet extension that supports Ledger devices.

New Listings & Integrations

MoonPay, the leading fiat onramp for crypto is now supporting Stacks.

At Miami's Stacks Summit today, Unbanked announced its integration with the Stacks blockchain, a Bitcoin smart contracts platform.

STX holders can now use STX tokens on the world’s largest eCommerce sites, including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Home Depot.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Blockchain.com, the world’s most popular crypto wallet, has added Wallet support for STX. With STX support already available on Blockchain.com’s Exchange, users will be able to toggle between the Wallet and Exchange to buy, sell, and earn STX rewards.

STX is now available for withdrawal and deposit on the Liquid exchange, and trading will officially go live on Wednesday, April 28 at 3:00 PM JST.

With Stacks supported, developers can access raw data from a wide variety of KYVE-supported blockchains via an API to build out more diverse applications.

Decentralized Perpetual contracts and expiry futures markets have arrived in the Stacks network.

🥳 Events, Conferences, & Parties

At the Stacks Foundation, June has been a whirlwind of exciting conferences, hackathons, workshops and meetups. Check out what we’ve been up to and find out how you can join us at future events.

Share this with a developer ❤️

We’re partnering with our friends at Stacks to bring you this tutorial on building a decentralized exchange on Stacks. We’re going to learn about Stacks, Clarity, and DeFi, and build something awesome!

As a blockchain developer, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is which ecosystem to build in.

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Disclaimer: The information shared in this email is strictly for informational purposes. You should not take its content, opinions, and/or descriptions provided as technical advice, legal advice, financial advice, or investment advice. See full disclaimer at stacks.org/terms.