Can’t miss in this edition:

• The Stacks Nakamoto Release is code complete. More.

• SEC concludes the investigation into the Stacks blockchain and Hiro with no recommended enforcement action. More.

• Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, announces single-asset crypto investment Stacks Trust. More. More.

Happy Bitcoin summer, Stackers! 🧡

The Bitcoin Builders Conference is set to take place this week in Nashville, featuring the brightest minds and top projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

All around, the temperature is rising within the Bitcoin builders ecosystem and things are no different in Stacks land as the community prepares for the Nakamoto Activation. Core developers celebrated code completion in early July, while the ecosystem has been bustling with activity hitting an all-time high for active accounts on the network.

Earlier this quarter, Grayscale, the largest institutional crypto asset manager, introduced its Stacks Trust, marking a significant step forward for Stacks as an institutional-grade Bitcoin layer. As the quarter concluded, so did the SEC’s investigation into Stacks with no recommended enforcement action. This outcome underscores and confirms the Stacks ecosystem’s unique longstanding pursuit of compliance. This decision is seen as a positive development for STX and the Stacks ecosystem, which continually strives for decentralization and regulatory compliance. BitGo's decision to become a Signer for the Stacks network reinforces this vision and adds yet another industry leader to its ranks ahead of the eagerly anticipated Nakamoto upgrade.

In all, this only scratches the surface of another quarter of Stacks ascending as the world embraces building on Bitcoin. As always, we’ve collected some of the highlights of the quarter below, but be sure to check out the following channels for more regular updates:

• Stacks Snacks

• @Stacks on X

• Stacks.co blog

To the many represented in this newsletter:
Thank you and congratulations,
Mitchell, Rick, and Claire | Stacks Foundation

PS: See you on these Stacks Streets?

🟧 Nakamoto & sBTC

Nakamoto

The community got to feel their Naka-mojo, celebrating the first step of Stacks’ Nakamoto release rollout: Instantiation. Stacks Foundation released a surprise commemorative NFT collection named Mojo, to celebrate the Nakamoto rollout and Bitcoin halving. As a result, the community took to Twitter, with Ignas, Louise, Roman K, Yanshu, Jack Binswitch, DeKaDub, Bitflow, Blockdaemon, George Grant, Defi.btc, Walpek, Reubs, House of Chimera, Jake Pahor, and many others sharing their excitement for the Nakamoto upgrade.

with the quarter already closing down, core developers brought more Nakamoto news. The full Nakamoto codebase, including the new code to increase Signer resiliency that was scoped after Step 1 in Nakamoto’s launch (Instantiation) is written & ready for auditing, testnet deployment, and robust continued testing ahead of the final launch step late August, Activation. Learn more.

sBTC

sBTC Product Lead Andre Serrano shared a detailed sBTC Rollout, bootstrapping to programmable Bitcoin. The sBTC Release Candidate will be ready at the end of August. From there, core developers want to observe 3-4 weeks of stable Nakamoto behavior on mainnet, and then the release of sBTC can begin. Given the extra time between now and Nakamoto Activation that was added for Signer resiliency features, sBTC can now follow Nakamoto by roughly a month instead of two. Learn more.

Industry Leaders Join Stacks

Industry leaders are going orange and joining forces with Stacks, including prominent names such as BitGo, Grayscale, Axelar, and Hypernative, among many others. Here’s a quick look at a few announcements from this past quarter alone:

• BitGo integrates Stacks for Bitcoin rewards, following institutional Bitcoin demand

• Axelar Integrates With Stacks To Bridge Bitcoin Across Over 65 Blockchains

• Portal Finance announces support for Stacks and sBTC

• Stacks and Uphold Partner Up to Boost Bitcoin Adoption

• Yala announces a strategic partnership with the Stacks Foundation

• Haruko to enhance digital asset management with Stacks integration

• Kiln announces integration of Stacks, becoming a Stacks Signer

• Hypernative Bolsters Bitcoin L2 Security as Stacks Ecosystem Gets Real-Time Protection

👀 Stacks Commentary & Reports

Grayscale goes Stacks

• Grayscale introduces Grayscale Research Top 20, including Stacks (STX).

• Grayscale publishes Building Block: Stacks report by Michael Zhao.

• Followed by a Grayscale Deeper Dive on STX, live with Stacks Creator Muneeb Ali.

More

• Blockworks features Trust Machines’ Rena Shah about what the Bitcoin halving means for Bitcoin L2s like Stacks.

• StackingDAO was featured on the Defiant DeFi Alpha letter.

• Stacks gets featured on Cointelegraph with Stacks Foundation product lead Andre Serrano.

• Muneeb speaks to CoinDesk about the Stacks Nakamoto Release and building on Bitcoin.

• Blockworks releases article about the Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade unfolding a new era for the Bitcoin L2.

• Stacks hits record high in active users as interest in Bitcoin DeFi grows, reported by Cointelegraph.

• DeSpread shares project report on Stacks.

• Stacks Creator Muneeb Ali joins CoinDesk Live to talk about the bull case for Stacks versus other Bitcoin L2 projects.

📊 Stacks Stats

⭐️ Stacks sees an all time high in active accounts (June: 135,000), transaction volume (May: 950,000,000 STX), and TVL (100,000,000 STX) reported by Signal21.

• Stacks takes a 1.25% of all social activity across all cryptocurrencies.

• Arkadiko reports 170% growth in Total Value Locked, as published by Signal21.

• StackingDAO rebranded, celebrating over $100M in total value locked.

• Research group House of Chimera celebrates record breaking ATH in TVL for Stacks.

• Active wallets and transaction volume for Stacks hit a new all-time-high, according to Sakemate based on Signal21’s data.

• Zest reaches 6,000 users in the first month after launching.

• Stacks sees all time high in active accounts in June, reported by Signal21. This, as well as peaking in active users for the top decentralized finance applications.

🏗️ Builders

Zest Protocol

• Introduces the first money market on Stacks, launches to the public.

• Relaunches on Stacks Mainnet with a new points system.

• Announces Arkadiko’s DIKO deposits into Zest Protocol.

• Releases stSTX borrowing for their DeFi protocol.

• Raises $3.5M led by Draper Associates with participation from Binance Labs, Trust Machines, and others.

Bitflow

• Successfully rebranded into the orange wave.

• Launches an upgraded pool for the USDA<>USDC trading pair with enhanced AMM logic.

• Opens up Rune AMM Waitlist.

• Launches new trading routes, of which one considers new pairs including STX to WELSH, ODIN, LEO, PEPE, and more.

• Announces their protocol emerging as the Liquidity Hub on Stacks, featuring their Aggregator, Deep Liquidity Curve style stable swaps, Uniswap-style liquidity pools and multiple trading routes.

ALEX

• Shares 1.5 Billion in trading volume milestone.

• Reopens recovered pools for trading.

• After sharing 40 Million USD trading volume since reopening, ALEX releases Platform Roadmap, enhancing ecosystem Value and Utility.

More

• DIA Cross Chain Oracle introduces Bitcoin L2 in Focus: Stacks.

• StackingDAO announces partnership with Hermetica, where the stSTX earn vault by Hermetica means new yield sources and point opportunities.

• Identity Protocol Galxe integrates Bitcoin L2 Stacks.

• Hermetica introduces their USDh Bitcoin-backed, yield-bearing synthetic dollar.

• LunarCrush moves to Stacks, launches first of its kind platform for the creator economy.

• Bitcoin DEX Velar announces Farming Rewards starting June 17th for the top 5 TVL Pools.

• Axelar announces they will be integrating with Stacks.

• StackingDAO announces partnership with Blockdaemon, the number one infra solution for staking.

• StackingDAO announces partnership with Wintermute.

• Velar introduces Multi Hop Swaps for their Bitcoin L2 Stacks DEX.

• Liquid Stacking asset stSTX (Stacking DAO) becomes the most accessible Stacks based token in the ecosystem, community leaders say.

🧡 Community & Governance

• Muneeb joined the stage in Korea to talk about activating Bitcoin season 2.

• The Stacks Foundation announces the approval of eleven Critical Bounties that drive Stacks development forward.

• EasyA is hosting a Stacks hackathon this weekend, listed as one of Harvard’s top career advancement opportunities for students.

• Bitcoin builders all over the world celebrate the Bitcoin halving, with Cusco, Lisbon, Santiago, Nairobi, and many other countries!

• The Stacks Latin America Community hosted multiple events in Buenos Aires, San Salvador, Santiago, and other cities!

• Stacks Australia held a Bitcoin builders meetup in Brisbane.

• EasyA wraps up the Stacks Harvard Hackathon with tens of projects launched and 200+ attendees.

• The Stacks Foundation introduces the Bitcoin L2 Lisbon Pitch Competition in partnership with Pizza Ninjas, Ordinals Lisbon, and NFC.

• Building on Bitcoin took oer BTC Asia Week, with the Bitcoin Odyssey being the largest side event.

• EasyA came to UT Austin leading up to the EasyA Consensus Hackathon with Stacks.

• Bitcoin Wallet Orange Crypto HQ announces Stacks support.

• The Stacks ecosystem met up in Bangkok to discuss building on Bitcoin.

• The Stacks Latin American community wraps up multiple meetups focused on onboarding more people to Bitcoin layers.

• Stacks builders are attending Coindesk's Consensus in Austin, come say hello at booth 1317.

• BitcoinL2 Labs announces $1M Orange Hats security resources for the Clarity WG.

• LearnWeb3 releases Stacks Bitcoin Developer Degree.