Building on Bitcoin has truly found its mojo. We’re hot off Bitcoin Unleashed in London, where one of the world’s hottest crypto hubs had a front-row seat to the blossoming world of Bitcoin layers.

The current trend: Projects continue to pop up, offering new takes and tools as developers look to build on Bitcoin. We’ve seen updates from the likes of Babylon, BitVM, Lightning, Chainway, ZeroSync, Ark, RSK, Stacks, and others.

The current vibe: Every layer and scaling solution is a good thing for Bitcoin and the builders trying to unleash the Bitcoin economy.

On the Stacks end of the Bitcoin ecosystem, core contributors have organized around shipping key releases expected to unlock sub-5 second block times and 100% Bitcoin finality (Nakamoto), and a 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset (sBTC) that can seamlessly move between the L1 and the L2.

Below, we’ve collected the biggest news from the past quarter, but don’t forget you can keep up on a weekly basis with Stacks Snacks too.

To keeping your Naka·mojo·,
Mitchell & the Stacks Foundation Team

PS: Need more convincing about Bitcoin L2s? Read more here and here.

🟧 Upgrades Ahead: Nakamoto & sBTC

The ecosystem continues building toward the release of Nakamoto and sBTC. At Bitcoin Unleashed, the sBTC Developer Release was revealed, allowing the over 200 attendees at the EasyA hackathon and 150 testnet program participants the opportunity to test an initial version of sBTC.

On the ecosystem side, Copper became the first major player to indicate their intended support for Nakamoto and sBTC. They did so while announcing their integration of Stacks, bringing custody and Stacking services to STX and all Stacks-based tokens.

🆙 Other Integrations & Improvements:

• Allbridge releases a Stacks bridge connecting Stacks to 19 chains

• Stacks Joins Ledger Live: Unlock Bitcoin Capabilities Securely

• Hiro: Subnets are Ready for Mainnet

• Ledger Support Comes to Ordinals with Xverse

• Hiro Wallet announces support for DLCs!

• Magic Protocol announces $50K liquidity for BTC to xBTC swaps

• Hiro: Introducing Chainhooks + learn how Chainhooks are a major step forward for Bitcoin DeFi courtesy of Zest

• RocketX + Stacks: unlock the power of the interchain

• Pyth brings devs 300+ price feeds in smart contracts on Stacks

👀 Looking at Stacks

Several people, from investors to developers took a deeper look at Stacks this quarter and shared their thoughts.

• CoinGecko’s top Layer 2s to Watch 

• House of Chimera’s episode on all things Stacks

• Messari includes Stacks in its L1 report

• Bitcoin Apostle: Stacks - The Ultimate Savings Account

• CryptoDep celebrates Stacks as coin of the day

• Lunar Crush: “Bitcoin layer 2” trending with Stacks as a solution

• Digital Asset News: Stacks is the layer to scale Bitcoin

• Stacks in Binance: 1 of 3 blockchains racing to be top security provider

• Alex Xela: Stacks' Recipe for Less Hackable, More Transparent, and Ultra-Secure Smart Contracts

• The Coin Republic: STX - Advantages and List of the Popular NFTs

• Paul Veradittakit: A deep dive on Stacks, Bitcoin scalability & more

• Khoa Nguyen: A thread on unlocking Bitcoin capital

• Bitcoin Wallet CEO Ken Liao names Stacks as his favorite scaling option for the Bitcoin economy

• Soberin: Examination of a Promising Bitcoin-Based Ecosystem

• Publius.btc shares ideas for sBTC startups

🏗️ Builders

• ALEX has a quarter for the ages, seeing over $23 million in BRC-20 trading shortly after releasing that functionality, revealed a partnership with Luminex, shared the world’s first on-chain indexer for BRC-20 tokens, integrated with OKX and Xverse for token swaps, and shared updated branding as the Finance Layer on Bitcoin while also launching their Bitcoin Lab ecosystem fund. Plus:

  • LunarCrush introduces $LUNR on Stacks via ALEX

  • Hardware wallet Ryder announces partnership with ALEX

• Bitcoin DeFi is growing and gearing up for sBTC:

  • Arkadiko highlights future integration of sBTC.

  • Velar shares plans to integrate sBTC.

  • Bitflow presents roadmap including sBTC during Bitcoin Frontier Fund Demo Days while their waitlist surpasses 17.5K

  • Papaya DAO, working on a Critical Bounty from the Stacks Foundation shares how they’re building liquid stacking

  • Hermetica Finance announces its beta, shares a thread on how Bitcoin’s Magic Comes to Life with Stacks, and reports on their latest yield

  • Stacking DAO reveals itself to the Stacks community, aiming to deliver liquid stacking

  • Velar launches its beta on Mainnet and integrates Xverse

• Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol announces Copper custody support

• Indexer.xyz launches the Indexer Notification System on Stacks

• Gamma introduces its Partner Program

• Trust Machines apps make moves:

  • Spotlight: LNSwap

  • Hiro Wallet is now called Leather and joins Trust Machines

• Degen Lab, working via Stacks Foundation Critical Bounty, launches Decentralized Stacking Pools on testnet

• Bitcoin wallet Xverse announces official Ledger support for $STX

• Force Prime releases Web3 gaming payments integration w/Stacks.

• Setzeus releases the first beta of Bitscript, a Bitcoin L1 and L2 education course for aspiring Bitcoin developers.

💰Funding

• Xverse announced a $5M seed round led by Jump Crypto

• Ryder Raises $1.2 Million to Build Wallets With No Seed Phrases

• Stacks Foundation Grantee DLC Link announced a $2 Million pre-seed

• OrdinalsBot announces $1M raise with support from Bitcoin Magazine

• ALEX closed a strategic round of $2.5M w/Gossamer and others

👷‍♀️ Working Groups

• The Stacks Foundation upgraded the Working Group area in Github to make them more discoverable and current. You can now find all the active Working Groups in one place and see their latest update.

• Currently, Stacks has (5) Core Engineering Working Groups working on Nakamoto, multi-tiered, massive upgrade including Bitcoin finality and fork awareness.

• Stacks Resident Hero Gamer publishes an application form for De-Grant pilot, a decentralized program designed by the community

• Stacks Improvement Proposal community starts series on sBTC

• Stacks smart contract language Clarity veteran Marvin Janssen highlights the achievements of the Clarity working group.

• On the heels of a high-impact round of Critical Bounties awarded in Q3, Q4 Critical Bounties were awarded to continue support for multiple engineers focused on testing & hardening sBTC and improving the UX/UI of the sBTC experience from end-to-end.

📆 Events & Builder Initiatives

• The first-ever Ready Layer 2 Pitch Competition saw 363 registrants and 107 participants from over 47 countries globally. Recap.

• September 6: “We are Bitcoin Hiros” event, ft. Stacks, Hiro, Trust Machines, DeSpread, ALEX, Xverse, Spartan

• Building on Bitcoin: This Layer-2 focused event was seen by thousands of Bitcoin builders around the globe. Recaps: Twitter and YouTube. 

• Learn Web 3 hosted the Decentralized Intelligence hackathon Season 1 including challenges for building with the Stacks Bitcoin L2 in an AI-focused challenge.

• Stacks Foundation & STX:LDN took part in Zebu Live and a Stacks + Coinscrum event to rally around the local London Bitcoin community. STX:LDN also launched their Community Builders Initiative.

• Bitcoin Unleashed London attracted hundreds at Protein Studios in Shoreditch and thousands watched behind their screens at home! Check out 5 important highlights from the conference here.

• 500,000+ developer community EasyA announced their 60 Days of Stacks challenge for developers and there’s still time to signup.

• The Stacks + EasyA Hackathon saw over 2,500+ developers get to know the basics of Clarity, and become prospects for the next generation of Bitcoin builders!