Author: Sleeping Wild in the Rain
Previously mentioned a bit about the BTC ecosystem, specifically mentioning Stacks and the Satoshi upgrade. Today, let's continue discussing the Stacks project.
Let's quickly go over the basic information of Stacks. (Stacks is an old project, so just a brief overview)
From my personal perspective, $STX will never miss the market hype around the BTC ecosystem, but the previous hype was more like a 'castle in the air,' without a solid foundation. After the Satoshi upgrade, Stacks will provide higher expectations to the market through better performance and sBTC.
So, what exactly has the Satoshi upgrade upgraded?
1. Performance
Previously, the block confirmation time for Stacks followed Bitcoin’s (PoX consensus mechanism), with a block time of about 10 minutes. This means that as a Bitcoin Layer 2, Stacks is inadequate; although it inherits Bitcoin's security, it hasn't significantly improved performance on the Layer 1 foundation.
After the Satoshi upgrade, according to Grayscale's calculations, the block time and Gas fees for Stacks have decreased from 6 min/6.65 u to 5 s/0.25 u.
Higher performance means a better user experience, and a better experience translates to higher attractiveness for users and developers. It will become the foundation for the development of the Stacks ecosystem. For example, previously trading memes on Stacks was quite exhausting, but now it will be much easier. We can also see more possibilities for Stacks DeFi, such as a wider range of DeFi products and participants.
One more thing, Stacks is optimizing the Satoshi upgrade for lower latency and higher bandwidth. Refer to this article
In terms of ideas, Stacks is still committed to addressing the shortcomings of Stacks to achieve higher performance. Higher performance is necessary to compete with other high-performance Layer 1/Layer 2 solutions.
2. $sBTC
Speaking of DeFi, after the Satoshi upgrade, the sBTC upgrade will occur in early December (at the earliest), with more upgrades planned for January and beyond. The Satoshi upgrade is the foundation for the sBTC upgrade, and the early December upgrade will optimize the Stacks token issuance mechanism and launch sBTC.
Btw, I hope it won't be delayed like the Satoshi upgrade.
After the upgrade, sBTC may become one of the important assets in the crypto market (the previous issue with $WBTC was also a boost for the development of cbBTC and sBTC, and Coinbase has also delisted $WBTC).
For sBTC, the most noteworthy aspect is its adoption metrics. We can also see that Stacks is working hard to promote the adoption of sBTC, such as collaborating with Bitcoin ATM operator Coinflip to integrate Stacks and sBTC, and introducing sBTC to Aptos, Solana, etc.
For sBTC, the growth model of cbBTC is very worth referencing. For example, supporting Moonwell with the $WELL token (and pushing up the price of $WELL) as rewards to promote the adoption of cbBTC. (Moreover, Stacks is quite wealthy, having recently completed a $20 million new financing round; they can completely use their funds to incentivize the adoption of sBTC, such as incentivizing sBTC adoption on lending protocols in Stacks, Aptos, and Solana.)
Overall, the expectations for Stacks are still positive: the Satoshi upgrade brought higher performance and introduced sBTC as the core asset of the Stacks ecosystem, and Stacks' strong capabilities have further improved the adoption expectations for sBTC.
Finally, on a side note. Recently, many public chains have been upgrading, such as Fantom Sonic and Avalanche 9000; their core purpose is to promote public chain adoption. It can be anticipated that the next few months will be quite exciting, as the public chain battle is about to begin~
