What is Stacks?
Stacks wants to unlock the full potential of the bitcoin.
Founded by Ryan Shea and Muneeb Ali in 2013 at Princeton University.
Ryan is an entrepreneur who got his bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering & Computer Science. He believes that humanity is facing a biggest problems such as Cognitive Wellness, Bioengineering and the Future of Work. Likewise, Muneeb Ali completed a Phd in Computer Science. He is a cypherpunk at heart. Accdg to Muneeb we are currently living in the dark ages of the internet.
The Stack blockchain brings predictable smart contracts and decentralized apps to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most durable and secure blockchain. Bitcoin is minimal by design and is meant to not change. Stacks extends the design of Bitcoin to enable smart contracts and apps without modifying Bitcoin and with minimal transaction load on Bitcoin. Thousands of Stacks transactions result in a single hash at the Bitcoin blockchain, and Stacks microblocks offer fast confirmations of streaming blocks.
What make stack unique is that even though it has a blockchain of its own, It depends on the bitcoin blockchain for security and transaction settlement it also uses BTC as the reserve currency for its own native STX token.
What is Stacks Cryptocurrency (STX)?
STX is Stacks Native Token. Stacks cryptocurrency (STX) is used as fuel for smart contract execution, transaction processing, and digital asset registrations. STX is a unique crypto asset that can be locked by STX holders to actively participate in consensus and earn Bitcoin (BTC) rewards from the protocol. STX holders can either (a) lock STX in consensus to earn BTC rewards, or (b) use STX as fuel for smart contracts and transactions.
Stacks cryptocurrency was distributed to the general public through the first-ever SEC qualified token offering in US history.
How does Stacks works?
Stacks uses a novel consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Transfer or PoX.
PoX consensus is a new algorithm that spans consensus between two blockchains. Leader election happens on a base chain and new blocks are written on a connected chain. PoX has the unique property that it establishes a native exchange pair between two cryptocurrencies. Miners use a base cryptocurrency to mine newly minted units of a new cryptocurrency.
PoX consists of two parties - Miners & Stackers.
STX miners can view state on both the Bitcoin blockchain and the Stacks blockchain. STX miners participate in leader election by sending transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) randomly selects leader of each round, and the leader writes the new block on the Stacks chain. STX miners get newly minted STX (coinbase rewards), transaction fees, and Clarity contract execution fees of each block. STX miners express the cost of mining in BTC and spend BTC to participate in leader election.
STX holders can participate in consensus by locking their STX for a cycle, running a full node, and sending useful information on the network as transactions. STX holders who actively participate in consensus can earn Bitcoin rewards. Unlike proof of stake, there is no risk of slashing for STX holders.
In PoX, stackers lock up their stx tokens for a 10-day period to earn a cut of the bitcoin commitment by miners as a reward for securing the network a minimum of 94,000 stx tokens are required to do this and the bitcoin rewards earned are likewise proportional to the amount of stx stacked relative to other stackers. Each block on the stacks blockchain only stores user identity and transactional metadata associated with that identity. This user identity is used to interact with all the applications on the stack ecosystem. The Stacks blockchain is connected one-to-one to the bitcoin blockchain, meaning that any changes made to user identities or wallet balances on the stacks blockchain can be verified using the bitcoin blockchain. This also includes smart contracts on stack which are built using a special coding language called “Clarity” that the stack team developed and tested with the help of algorand’s team.
Built on Stacks
There are over 400 apps built on Stacks 1.0 with standouts like Pravica and Blocksurvey.
Check out some of our favorites at app.co
Stacks Grants
The Stacks Grants beta program was started in September by the Stacks Foundation and designed to fuel developer activity and support overall growth of the ecosystem. The program is off to a promising start with over $36,000 approved funding in USD across 13 proposals. To learn more and Apply for a Grant. Visit here.
Recent New Exchanges:
OKCoin: OKCoin Plans To List STX In The US
Kucoin: Stacks (STX) Gets Listed on KuCoin!
Crypto.com: Crypto.com Lists stacks (STX)
Early Investors & STX Holders
Recent Partnerships
Staked: Staked Will Support BTC Earnings via Stacking Upon Stacks 2.0 Launch
Hashquark: HashQuark & Daemon, Announcing Support for Stacking on Stacks 2.0
Algorand: Teaming With Algorand to Build A Safer, More Secure Smart Contract Language
Chainlink: Combining Stacks 2.0 And Chainlink Oracle Technology Brings Developers New Smart Contract Possibilities
Coinbase Rosetta: The Stacks Blockchain API Now Supports Coinbase’s Rosetta Standard
Blockdaemon: Blockdaemon to Provide Robust Node Tools for the Stacks 2.0 Network
Arweave: Bounty From Arweave and stack PBC: Clarity on SmartWeave\
Ankr: Ankr To Support Seamless Stacking on Stacks 2.0
To know more about Stacks, Check out Stacks website https://www.stacks.co/
https://stackstoken.com/
Proof-of-Transfer https://docs.blockstack.org/understand-stacks/proof-of-transfer
Telegram https://community.blockstack.org/groups
Clarity https://clarity-lang.org/
Algorand https://www.algorand.com/
Disclaimer: The author assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of the blog. This blog is for initiation challenge purpose only.
