Q4 2023:Can’t miss in this edition:

• Earlier today, the Nakamoto upgrade began rolling out! 🟧

• Leading voices, VC, and media have all written about Stacks this quarter, offering compelling insights on Bitcoin L2s and more.

• The Stacks network achieved several new usage highs in Q1.

• Builders are on a roll, fundraising, partnering, and building new use cases that will bring billions to Bitcoin.

Happy Naka●monday, Stackers!

If you’re reading this, now is your sign to take a moment to celebrate the official start of the Nakamoto upgrade rollout. Earlier today, the first of two hard forks went live thanks to miners, node operators, exchanges, Signers, and more. This means there’s only one step (Activation) left before Nakamoto’s fast blocks, Bitcoin finality, and other improvements are available to everyone!

Let’s pause for a minute and give a major 👏👏 to the Core Developers who have worked tirelessly toward this milestone. Nakamoto represents years of vision and hard work and sets the stage for an even more exciting future for the Bitcoin economy.

Chances are, you’re sensing and seeing the growing buzz around Stacks. Layered launch plans have been in full effect as we ramp up events, press, speaking engagements, partnership announcements, team and builder highlights, and developer education.

The TL;DR: The leading Bitcoin L2 is getting better for builders.

Take action // Keep the naka·mojo:

The Stacks ecosystem continues to lead the broader conversation around Bitcoin L2s and the Bitcoin economy and that means April and May are exciting opportunities to grow the community. Here are a few things you can do to help welcome newcomers to the world of Stacks:

• Like, RT, and share content and stories (use #nakamoto on X)

• Join an event near you, there are 50+!

• Get on the list for the Mojo mint, a special PFP collection to celebrate Nakamoto.

There’s more:

As exciting as all of this is, Nakamoto is far from the only thing going on in the ecosystem. This newsletter is your one-stop shop for catching up on everything you may have missed the past few months or a hearty welcome to the community if you’re new here.

Keep the Naka•mojo, Stackers!

Mitchell & the Stacks Foundation Team

🟧 Nakamojo (Launch Reads)

• Decrypt: Stacks, Bitcoin Layers, and the Nakamoto Upgrade

• Coindesk: OG Bitcoin L2 Stacks Is Getting a Major Overhaul

• Bankless: The Bitcoin Halving’s Degen Bets

• Blockworks: What will the Bitcoin halving mean for Bitcoin L2s? 

• Charlie Shrem Show: Bitcoin L2 with Muneeb Ali of Stacks and Andy Fajar Handika of Loka Mining

• Cointelegraph: BTCFi is an ‘enormous opportunity’ to make Bitcoin a productive asset

• Restake: Stacks is Propelling the Bitcoin Renaissance

• CoinTelegraph: Stacks expands with Blockdaemon, Near Foundation amid Bitcoin surge

👀 Stacks Commentary & Reports

• Signal21 releases its Q1 Stacks report, boasting active Stacks user dominance, record TVL, soaring token prices, and more.

• CoinDesk announces the release of The Spartan Group’s Bitcoin Layers report.

• Coinbase Newsletter Bytes shares Bitcoin could gain new smart-contract superpowers with the Lightning Network and Stacks.

• Bob Bodily lists why Stacks might be the world’s first sovereign-validium L2 on Bitcoin.

• DeFi Researcher Ignas publishes his “Degen Playbook for Stacks”, shares by tech newsletter TLDR.

• Ledger shares Bitcoin L2s, what they are and how they work, with Stacks.

• Binance Research lists Stacks as notable Bitcoin project with their upcoming sBTC solution to create a decentralized, non-custodial, Bitcoin L2.

• OKX shares Bitcoin 2024 Outlook, featuring Stacks as scaling solution and ALEX as finance layer for Bitcoin.

• Tang Chan shares his latest report on why he believes Stacks could present a $90 Billion opportunity.

• ABCDE Labs publishes its ABCDE 2024 BTC Recap including Stacks.

• Sora Ventures publishes Q1 2024 Bitcoin ecosystem map with an overwhelming amount of Stacks entities.

• Binance academy publishes deep dive on Bitcoin L2s.

• House of Chimera releases Bitcoin L2 protocol overview.

VCs and Investors on Stacks, Bitcoin

• Digital assets investment firm Franklin Templeton gives a March 2024 update on Stacks: The Nakamoto Upgrade.

• Paul Veradittakit lists Stacks within “the resurgence of Bitcoin” and “DeFi Summer 2.0” as prediction for 2024 on CoinDesk.

• Pantera Capital releases letter named “The Year Ahead” with the resurgence of Bitcoin due to the rise of L2s as prediction for 2024.

• Grayscale publishes 2024 Bitcoin report listing Stacks as laying the groundwork for L2s.

• MT Capital shares research report: Stacks Nakamoto is about to be upgraded to inject new impetus into the Bitcoin ecosystem.

• PM at Pantera Capital Cosmo Jiang shares excitement for the Nakamoto Launch.

📊 Stacks Stats

DeFillama reports highest TVL ever for Stacks (and that doesn’t include the over $1b locked for Stacking!)

Stacks transactions see close to 800,000 monthly transactions for 4 months straight.

Leading up to 2023, Bitcoin L2s took over as a key narrative in crypto, with Stacks' monthly users skyrocketing from 16,000 in November to over 64,000 in December and not dropping below 50,000 ever since, reported by OurNetwork via Signal21.

Meanwhile:

• Bitflow ($40M), Zest Protocol ($10M), Velar ($5M), all got added to DeFi Llama after going to Mainnet.

• Blockchain Research Group House of Chimera reports rapid growth in daily transactions on Stacks.

• Electric Capital publishes the yearly crypto developers report with Stacks established developers being up 51%.

• 40% of Bitcoin developers are working on Bitcoin L2s, Mohamed Fouda reports.

• Messari shares Q4 2023 State of Stacks report with daily active addresses up 85.6% QoQ.

• Stacks reaches 1,000,000 unique wallets according to Signal21.

• DeFi protocol ALEX sees trading volume on its decentralized exchange skyrocket to one Billion dollars.

• StackingDAO breaks another milestone with over 25,000 unique active wallets.

• StackingDAO crossed $90M TVL, now over $100M the largest amount locked in a protocol for Stacks.

🏗️ Builders

• ALEX closed a $10m funding round led by the Spartan Group.

• Liquid Stacking protocol Papaya is now on testnet with sBTC.

• MEXC exchange lists first Bitcoin-secured meme coin.

• Asigna Founder Vlad / Fess-v introduces sOrdinals protocol, with the website now live.

• STX20 launches a significant enhancement to the STX20 ecosystem, involving smart contract transfers, airdrops, wrapping, and more!

• Ortege: A new era of data access for the Stacks Community

• STX20 celebrates one million transactions on STX20 since launch, with sOrdinals closing in on 200,000 inscriptions.

• Ryder announces it will operate Fast Pool, the largest stacking pool on Stacks, and with that will become a signer for the upcoming Stacks upgrade.

• Liquid Staking protocol StackingDAO:

  • Announces integration with Xverse.

  • Announces Stacking DAO V2.

• ALEX DeFi reveals Liquid Stacking on Stacks with LISA, in partnership with Xverse and Ryder.

• Portal DeFi Announces Support for Stacks & sBTC on Cross-Chain DEX

• Bitcoin Frontier Fund shares its partnership with ALEX and Bitcoin Labs to launch a Bitcoin Launchpad Advisory board.

• Megapont announces the MegaDAO, a fully on-chain DAO built on Stacks.

• Leather integrates native SIP10 token swaps in the app

• Xverse integrates Mutisig wallet Asigna.

• Xverse celebrates $100,000,000+ Stacked in STX with the Xverse pool.

• Coindesk reports Stacks L2 DeFi protocol Velar raises $3.5M and releases their token to exchanges.

• Stacks team Leo introduces STX Tools for SIP10 tracking tools.

• Officially announces Arkadiko 2.0, introducing a complete vault overhaul, liquid stacking collateral, redemption mechanism, and more.

• MEXC announces Arkadiko’s DIKO to be listed on their exchange

• Bitcoin Layer 2 Bridge XLink announces $50,000,000 in bridging volume leading up to XLink airdrop.

• New Bitcoin economy data platform named Signal21 announced, featuring the leading Bitcoin L2 and multiple Stacks protocols.

• EasyA hosted a Stacks workshop at Harvard University.

• Trust Machines introduces Orange Domains, a new protocol in partnership with Hiro Systems and Tucows.

• Bifrost announces pledge to support sBTC for their protocol.

• Velar launches its AMM, now live with STX<>aeUSDC, STX<>sBTC, and more!

• Xlink partners with Bifrost Network to bring cross-chain capabilities to the Stacks ecosystem.

• Liquid Staking Protocol Lisa reports on a $1.5M TVL within just 60 minutes of launch.

🧡 Community

• Stacks Community Resident introduces the Pilot Cohort of De-Grants Program.

• The Stacks Foundation creates a Stacks Working Group with $500K allocations to work on Bitcoin layers with BitVM.

• EasyA announces 25 Stacks developer workshops and a developer challenge focused on building a DeFi app on Stacks

• Watch back the Building on Bitcoin live event with Muneeb Ali, Alexei Zamyatin, Laura Shin, Daniel Fogg, Trevor Owens, and more.

• Meet the Stacks community in real life. Introducing the Nakamoto Launch Series: 30+ places you can join during the halving.

• Hundreds of developers kicked off the Ready Layer 2 hackathon. You still have a few days to join late and participate in one of the hackathon or pitch tracks.

• 70,000 people started Stacks developer challenges in the EasyA app.

• Seoul colors orange! Fid out where you can meet the Stacks community in Seoul during Build Asia.

• Stacks Creator Muneeb spoke in Seoul about Bitcoin L2s.