Stacks, an open source network for building smart contract and DeFi bridges to Bitcoin (BTC), has forged several important partnerships after the mainnet launched. This is a strong signal that industry players are keen to support new use cases for BTC.
The Stacks 2.0 mainnet was officially launched on Thursday and promises new use cases for Bitcoin based on the intelligent contract language Clarity. As Cointelegraph reported, Stacks 2.0 seeks to extend the utility of Bitcoin beyond the digital gold narrative to decentralized finance and smart contracts. This includes the fact that the Bitcoin capital currently on the verge of around 700 billion US dollars is put into operation.
Foundry Digital, a Digital Currency Group company, has since announced that it will provide mining services for STX, the native cryptocurrency of the Stacks ecosystem. According to the Foundry, the move sends “a clear signal to miners about the ability to mine STX”.
Foundry was one of several independent miners who launched the Stacks 2.0 network on Thursday.
Blockdaemon, a blockchain infrastructure platform, has also announced the integration into Stacks 2.0, with which institutions and investors can become node operators.
“We are currently experiencing unprecedented institutional investments in the crypto sector, which shows the need for an infrastructure for companies to connect and scale blockchain networks,” said Konstantin Richter, CEO of Blockdaemon.
Regarding Stacks 2.0, he added:
“We are aligned in our vision of building Web 3.0 and look forward to the network providing a truly decentralized and user-owned Internet.”
Meanwhile, Korea-based Upbit exchange has announced that it will list STX on its platform and make the token available to up to 3 million investors.
“Upbit is uniquely positioned to expand the Stacks ecosystem for Korean users,” the exchange said.
Stacks 2.0 is based on the PoX consensus mechanism (proof of transfer). The novel mining system uses proof-of-work to create new blockchains based on the security of Bitcoin. According to Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks, PoX can encourage participation in the network by offering Bitcoin rewards, which was not possible before the protocol was designed.
