Written by: Asher
Editor: Qin Xiaofeng
Stacks: Bitcoin Layer 2 Solution
Basic Information
The Stacks public chain was co-founded by Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea in 2013. It was originally named Blockstack and later renamed Hiro Systems PBC. A major feature of this project is that it is financed under Reg A under the supervision of the SEC and is a blockchain project that meets the regulatory standards of the SEC. As of today, Stacks has completed 5 rounds of financing, with a total amount of US$88 million (as shown below).
Image source: Rootdata
According to official news, Stacks will launch a version called "Nakamoto" in the first quarter of 2024. The biggest highlight of this version is the transaction speed, which will be increased from the current 10-30 minute block speed bound to Bitcoin L1 to 5 seconds.
The Inscriptions section drives the popularity of Stacks
This round of craze for the inscription sector has also come to the Stacks chain. Since the launch of Stacks’ first inscription project STXS, the price of STX has risen from $1 to the current $1.5, an increase of 50%.
Image source: coingecko
Moreover, the most noteworthy thing is that since the STX inscription project STXS became popular, most exchanges have been in a state of stopping withdrawals in the past week. Today, exchanges have gradually opened withdrawals, but most exchanges have also raised the withdrawal fees. The following figure shows the current situation of exchanges being able to withdraw money to on-chain wallets.
Withdrawal Status of Exchanges
Ecological Development
Image source: DefiLlama
By analyzing the Stacks on-chain data, the ecosystem is still in its early stages, with a TVL of nearly $60 million. If the concept of BTC L2 can be caught up with the product upgrade in 2024, it is likely that several projects with a market value of over 100 million or even 1 billion will emerge. So, what are the sectors and corresponding leading projects that are worth paying attention to at present? Odaily Planet Daily has compiled the hottest projects in this ecosystem for everyone.
Inscription Plate
In this wave of inscription craze, the Stacks chain also has its own "local" inscription project. Although it is not as popular as the inscriptions on Ethereum and Solana chains, the inscriptions issued on Stacks have also produced their own leading project STXS, which is also the first inscription project issued by the chain. It is also popular in Europe and the United States and has received official support. At present, the inscriptions issued on the chain are ranked according to the current market value as shown in the figure below. It can be clearly seen from the figure that the development of inscriptions on this chain is still in its early stages. Even the leading project STXS has a market value of less than 7 million US dollars, and there are only three inscription projects with a market value of more than 100,000 US dollars.
Stacks Inscription Market Value Ranking
Although the overall market value of the Stacks inscription market is relatively small, there are already places where secondary trading can be carried out (as shown below). After a version iteration, the basic experience of trading STX 20 projects on this platform is satisfactory. There are still some complaints:
When making a purchase, the pending time is too long. In the current version of Stacks, the block generation speed is synchronized with BTC block generation, so a simple transfer may take more than 20 minutes. In addition, the platform will need 6 blocks to confirm the purchase after it is on the chain, which further prolongs the transaction time. It is preliminarily estimated that it will take at least 2 hours to complete this series of actions.
Since the chain is rarely used, the Gas fee will not be adjusted, resulting in the transaction being in the Pending state. Since most people rarely interact with wallets on the Stacks chain, or even never do so, the Gas fee will not be adjusted during transactions, resulting in the chain being unable to be uploaded, resulting in a stuck chain (the previous transaction is not completed, and subsequent transactions cannot be carried out). Finally, a new transaction can only be carried out after 256 blocks (if the pending transaction on the Stacks chain is still packaged after 256 blocks, it will be automatically cancelled).
It is also for this reason that when the secondary exchange was just launched, the floor price of the inscription leader STXS fell from the highest of $600 in the OTC market to the lowest of around $200, and currently remains around $300. However, compared with other public chains with inscriptions, Stacks developed a secondary exchange in just one week and iterated the second version after Christmas, which is already a fast pace. If Stacks increases the block speed in the first quarter of next year, most of the trading problems will be solved, and the projects in its inscription ecosystem may have a good increase, so it is worth paying attention to.
Image source: stx20.com
DeFi Section
ALEX
ALEX is an open source DeFi protocol based on the Stacks public chain. Its goal is to provide a complete DeFi product for the Bitcoin network. Currently, ALEX's position in Stacks is like Uniswap on Ethereum.
Currently, the mainnet version of ALEX has functions including Swap, lending, staking, yield mining, and Launchpad. In addition, at a time when BRC-20 is booming, ALEX has also launched an order book exchange for BRC-20.
In addition, it is worth noting the Launchpad service on ALEX. ALEX is also involved in the current hot sector. The latest Launchpad is a re-release of old OG projects, which has a certain community foundation and deserves special attention.
ALEX is the native token of Alex Labs and the platform's reward medium for providing liquidity and staking. The current price of ALEX is $0.375 and the market value is approximately $245 million.
Source: coingecko
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/ALEXLabBTC
Official website: https://app.alexlab.co/swap
NFT Section
Gamma
Gamma is the largest NFT trading platform in the Stacks ecosystem, consisting of three core parts: NFT Marketplace, NFT Launchpad, and WEB3 social platform. Gamma aims to organically bring together collectors, creators, and investors in the Bitcoin ecosystem to explore, trade, and display NFTs. Users can use Gamma bot to cast their unique digital works and collect or sell them. Similar to other mainstream NFT decentralized exchanges on public chains, Gamma.io can also create Bitcoin NFTs without code, and users can successfully create them in just a few minutes.
In the past week, the most discussed NFT project in the Stacks ecosystem is Happy Welsh, whose project token has skyrocketed dozens of times from zero in the first half of the year to this wave of market. The total amount of Happy Welsh is 2,000, and the floor price is 70 STX (as shown below).
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/trygamma
Official website: https://stacks.gamma.io/
Wallet section
Xverse
Xverse is a WEB3 crypto wallet built on Stacks and supporting the Ordinals protocol. Users can use this wallet to manage BTC assets and Stacks assets. At the same time, the wallet also has a built-in stack function, and users can earn Bitcoin income through stack STX, with an annualized rate of return of 9%.
Overall, the UI of the Xverse wallet is simple, and the wallet creation process is similar to that of many EVM-compatible wallets, using mnemonics to restore the wallet. For users who are used to the MetaMask wallet, this greatly reduces the threshold for using the Xverse wallet. After the wallet is created, multiple addresses will be generated at the same time, one is a Bitcoin address for receiving and sending Bitcoin assets, and the other is a Stacks network address for managing Stacks-based assets.
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/xverseApp
Official website: https://www.xverse.app/
Leather
Leather is a wallet application built on Bitcoin. It was originally Hiro Wallet. Hiro is a development tool company that provides support for developers on the Stacks blockchain. Similar to the creation process of Xverse, it is easy for users who have used MetaMask to get started. At the same time, Leather has some convenient built-in small functions. Users can buy STX directly in Leather using credit cards, debit cards, and even bank transfers.
Currently, the wallet supports browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Brave, as well as desktop versions for MacOS, Windows, and Linux. The browser extension version can connect to applications, purchase STX, mint and purchase NFTs, and use Ledger hard wallets. The desktop version can participate in staking to earn Bitcoin and use Ledger hard wallets to protect assets.
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeatherBTC
Official website: https://leather.io/
Summarize
Overall, Stacks has not really exploded in this round of market, and it is still in the early stage. If the "Nakamoto" version in the first quarter of 2024 can be successfully launched, Stacks is likely to usher in an explosion under the BTC Layer 2 narrative.
If the Stacks ecosystem explodes, the currently popular Inscriptions section, Launchpad, and Meme section deserve special attention. At the same time, the Infrastructure section should also pay more attention to its data changes and look for Alpha.
