well well welcome everybody we're just slowly getting started here and having everyone drip
in but great that you're here it's a it's a new a new week a new stacks defy show so
I'm just gonna be here fitting a bit the time until everyone is here but I see Alex is coming
up and Kyle here as well and yeah I think maybe if people can do a quick thumbs up they can
hear me it's always good audio test just to see if everything is working correctly as we
had some issues last week I see no thumbs up which is quite concerning okay I see a fist
I see a thumbs up okay that's fantastic that's fantastic good good good good then we're all
here Kyle is coming on as a speaker I see all the familiar faces in the audience and a lot
thumbs up thank you very much and the clapping algorithm trip monkey stacks maps lots of cool
people dialing dialing in just a quick check are you are you there Alex and Kyle oh yeah
my check one two one two nice that's Kyle and that's a down from Alex fantastic no that's
great that's great that's great so Philip who is also probably going to join us shortly is
traveling so he he might be sort of in in and out but let's give everyone maybe a couple
of minutes to to come in call it one one two minutes that we should do Kyle I mean you're the
you're the expert when it comes to hosting spaces so should we should we wait one more minute or so
and then and then kick things off sounds like a plan all right all right and we'll be we back
at three three past the hour good you clearly tell Philip is not here because we don't have
the music while we wait you know but the next time next time we'll figure out how to do that
all right everybody that's just let's get the show on the road and that's another it's
another week in in Stax Defy Lab well first of all welcome everybody to the Stax Defy show
which is I guess very simple it's a show about Stax Defy and this is the third the third time
it's we're here all together so and I guess the theme this time is a bit like well reports I
mean reports everywhere right I think you know Kyle has joined us here as well who could
probably share a lot about that but there was the Bitcoin layers report that that Kyle has put a lot
of effort in and and that he can he can tell a lot more a lot more about and then in addition
there was also the finance research reports distinct Stax in you know themes for 2024 as well
as top 10 narratives to follow I mean I think we all know what that what that means the
lecture capital developers report right so you know up 51% year-on-year for Stax and then
hero systems also really is their developers guide for Bitcoin even so they got a lot of
lot of things to talk about in addition to like all the you know news from from from the Alex
side from the Archideco side the stacking down side there's some few a few bits and bulbs on
that's protocol as well but but yeah for before I guess I pass to the other guys to to introduce
themselves just a quick note of housekeeping you know this is of course a space about DeFi
and finance and so on but you know everything said here is for discussion information purposes
only and the content shared by every guest here should not be considered financial bias right but
yeah without further ado I think maybe guests first I mean Kyle who are you is this your
first Twitter spaces or yeah feel free to introduce yourself and what you're what you're what you're
what you're doing I'm honored it's a it's different sitting on this side of the table for change and
thank you very much Tyco happy to be here and joining today's show especially the third episode
as well and those who don't know I'm for me I'm Kyle I got I have been a part of the stacks
ecosystem for a little bit now but also have the honor of hosting our weekly series called
the crypto Internet show with stacks talking about everything stacks Bitcoin layers and
otherwise hence the joke back and forth between Tyco being host and speaker and also have the
pleasure of doing a few other things including working with a lot of the venture community to
educate them on stacks and Bitcoin layers what's happening in the space what's trending where
things are going or moving and then also now going to be working closely with n21 which the
Nakamoto prep school in partnership with Mitchell the foundation and a few other rock stars including
some of those here on stage to help and work with companies of all stages precede all the way up
through companies that are well established on integrating and preparing for the Nakamoto
upgrade in a couple months yeah super cool though we should cover all those things and also if we
if we don't Kyle you need to just take over right you can just you know host debate yourself as
well to make sure we talk about everything so it's very very informal here of course that's the
point but not fantastic that's it's really exciting I guess the head on behind the Alex
handle do you want to share a few words about yeah great hi everyone happy to be here I'm
Hadaa Espiritio with the Alex lab foundation we're on BD lead and Alex is building the
finance layer of Bitcoin by which we mean that we work to seamlessly integrate the Bitcoin L1
with L2 scalability and programmability this is to accelerate mass adoption help build the bitcoin
economy and provide multi-chain liquidity and connecting Bitcoin L1s to L2s and other blockchains
as well so you know happy to be on the on the DFI space and and discuss one of my favorite topics
with all of you amazing amazing yeah lots to talk about there so yeah very exciting and Philip are
you are you there I am here I am here yeah happy to be here I'll give a quick intro to
I'm a core contributor at Archideco Archideco finance which is a lending protocol on stacks
you can mint your own stablecoin call USDA so it's like lending borrowing platform it's awesome
if you want to look for leverage by those meme coins you know without selling you know your stacks
or your BTC or whatever you want to do really with the caveat that I have to add take care
of your leverage people I woke up this morning and with the price correction that was about 10%
of all USDA and circulation being liquidated so a lot of dgents have been around the last week so
take care don't get overly bullish but yeah that's Archideco and then I'm also core contributor at
stacking now which is a liquid stacking protocol yeah gonna stop there but happy to be here and
yeah let's go yeah yeah let's do it let's do it I guess we just oh oh everyone my introduction but
yeah I'm Tycho co-founder of ZS protocol and also core contributor at stacking now but yeah ZS protocol
is a lending protocol built for Bitcoin not live yet but we're very close maybe share a bit more
about that in a second and previously I was general manager at trust machines and I was a
product lead for for SPTC as part of the stacks Nakamoto release which were all very much looking
forward to but yeah I guess without without like without further ado Carl what's what's been
what's been going on over the past few weeks I mean Bitcoin layers Binance research electric
capital you know you've been you've been you've been you've been doing a lot of work it seems
just a little bit it's it's been a pretty wild I would say having been in this industry for many
years now like yourselves on stage this year I'd say we've seen possibly one of the largest drops
of reports in a two-week span so right towards the end of the year and then right at the
beginning of the year we had Massari who launched their massive crypto thesis at the end of the
year I think it was almost 200 pages this time around and covers the entire industry as a whole
fast forward to the beginning of the year you're calling it out perfectly we've got the electric
capital report we also had a bank list that dropped a report we had a few theses come out about
specifically around Bitcoin from portal ventures we had thesis Northrock capital foundation capital
released part one of a three-part series of their diving into and research on the
evolving Bitcoin ecosystem but also what they're seeing change between Ethereum and Bitcoin L2 so
the entire L2 market cap as well as you said we had Binance drop reports we also had Pantera
release a report last week talking about their predictions for 2024 and their number one
prediction similar to today's topic was the resurgence of Bitcoin and quote DeFi summer 2.0
end quote as well where they're looking at the evolvement of DeFi decentralized finance
to come here in 2024 but how layer two specifically those scalability layers on Bitcoin will play a
very important role being stacks and rootstock is who they call out they also give a shout to
ordinals as well so already in the beginning of this year we're seeing a lot of not just
predictions but just deep analysis of how things have truly changed really over the last I would
say year year in a few months since the launch of ordinals which created this massive cultural shift
that we have discussed multiple times around the Bitcoin economy but I think I'll go as far as say
it create a cultural shift throughout all of web 3 and I'm also seeing some intersecting
technologies that people are getting excited about that has kind of reinvigorated that drive to
develop and to build as well so in summary there's there's been a lot of reports a lot of research
put out they all encompass the same kind of theme as 2024 is a very foundational and big year
for developing in and within web 3 as well yeah no but yeah it feels as though everyone is
in position you know which is of course very very important as well but but but yeah it's
pretty interesting right because like say a year ago like these reports would have happened and like
you know maybe there would have been like a footnote about Bitcoin layers or or something
like that and now it's like you know front and center everywhere like I'm not sure I mean yeah
how do you guys are obviously very prominently featured in all of these all of these things I
mean do you feel like there's a you know is there like a big change on your side like when
you speak with people on the BD front like are there are there steps you can skip these days
about like you know what what stacks or why Bitcoin layers or what sort of your
your your experience how these how these reports are kind of you know helping all of us here
uh sure I think the the the the reports are definitely a benefit I think that you know
progressively we're expanding the circle of uh of stacks awareness um a bit more into uh DRC20
communities into the the Bitcoin L2 narrative um and uh you know it's definitely it's definitely less
of a bit of an of an intro than than it's been before uh a lot of the projects that we speak to now
at least um have some familiarity have have heard of stacks um you know connected to something or
other Alex might have done have some familiarity with us um but I would say it's still it's it's
still a work in progress um I think uh particularly in the sort of stacks uh in Bitcoin space
um you know and this is obviously true of I think any crypto community that it can be
uh a little bit of a of a bubble and whereas I think outside of of stacks and Bitcoin centrists
um I'm not sure as much to what degree uh users on say Ethereum, Solana, or other L1s might be
familiar but I think uh you know with the with with the recent uh move that we've seen in the
market with the Bitcoin ETF uh the the L2 narrative have certainly grown um you know obviously I think
crypto has a bit of a goldfish memory so now uh with a little bit of the of the market fade
that we've seen since the ETF people are likely to uh ease back on the narrative again but uh
you know sure enough you know come next rally uh which I see as inevitable I think it'll just
come back and reinforce itself stronger so you know I think uh stacks and the um and the Bitcoin L2
narrative is uh is stronger now than at any point that I can remember it and we're really well
positioned I think going into going into the halving uh and seeing uh some some seeing us hit
some support levels to really build upon what we've already uh what what we already have established
as a foundation uh and grow quite strongly from there so yeah I think I'm very I'm very optimistic
on the space and think um that you know reports and you know again hats off to Kyle and the work
he's done with that with his partner on the reports um it really goes a long way because you
know it helps us target those those thought leaders and and then progressively over the coming you
know days weeks months we will see that narrative you know trickle down to to influencers and then
the more mainstream crypto community so I think everything is is happening uh at the right time
and uh at the correct pace yeah yeah yeah that's that's that's I think that's very much the
share as well and I think everyone here on this show I think or I think a lot of people I mean if I see
all the familiar faces you know we've been we've been thinking the same things for for a long time and
now it's kind of you know on paper but yeah I guess maybe with that in mind a bit like also curious
Kyle right I mean um you know considering like you know a lot of people here in the audience I mean
you know we know what Stacks is right we know what proof of transfer is we know that like Bitcoin
is important Bitcoin layers is important like you know even for us like is there is there something
where you where you're like that was in the reports recently where you're like okay that's
like uh that's like a surprising thing like even to you or like a nugget where you're like whoa this
is like something I wouldn't have expected um in there I mean I don't know if you have an answer
to that maybe no but just just kind of curious like if there is something where you're like whoa
this is extremely notable to to a group of people who you know who kind of you know maybe you know
know all the things about Stacks already yeah I think there's there's two and uh I'll say one
that maybe is a little bit more obvious uh than the first I over the last I would say almost
six years so we'll say from about 2017 to 2022 as noted there's been a lot of focus on
Ethereum and EVMs which I'll just bucket uh those um those other networks within and
that ecosystem has had a lot of focus a lot of development a lot of efforts to bring to light
as much as possible and including data and um what I noticed and we noticed when writing the
port with my co-authors at spartan is you know trying to find not just data for within the
bitcoin ecosystem throughout protocols but also consistent data because there's so many moving
pieces so fast coming to light uh that was one that was a little bit of a shock but then when
finding some of this data it was pretty impressive to see how things have evolved and some of the
on-chain activity that we were were able to capture river financial put out a pretty fantastic report
as well providing an in-depth overview on of a lightning network and how much activity
which I'm happy to pull up the stats of how much activity that lightning was seeing
at the time and river it seemed was one of the first that was able to encapsulate
that data uh within the lightning network so how many channels were open but also the
activity that was happening between channels as well so to me seeing that kind of data that
almost I would say months ago didn't really exist to now starting to be more consistent to start
to come to light but is also a huge opportunity for those that are looking to develop because
when it comes to the world of ethereum and evms we have outstanding resources whether that's dune
it's defi llama it's missouri it's many others but the bitcoin ecosystem hasn't been fully plugged
into that yet uh just bits and pieces so that would be the second thing is just what data
was available finding you know consistencies and parallels but then also seeing new data and
to your point I go this report of ours came out before the electric capital report came out
we were actually we launched I think maybe 18 hours from each other they launched and then we
launched so our data gathering uh process came right around the same time and we were fortunate
that electro capital has the developer report dot com so they have a lot of that information
real time so we were watching some of this information on uh stacks and on other networks
evolve as they were putting together their report um as well and then I'll say that maybe
the first that is not so obvious but is becoming as we have more shows and conversations like
the stacks defi show here and others is how much development is actually happening
when we started this report there were only I would say really a handful of new protocols
br src 20 was just being talked about brc 20 was just being talked about fast forward when
we finished this we had tracked well over seven different token standards in research efforts
found well over 25 different protocols uh which was a whole another conversation of how
they define themselves how the market and industry defines what's a protocol to what's a layer
etc and maybe what's a side chain and it was just pretty breathtaking to see how within a year
as there is some history which we show in a new market map some of the applications
and seeing 80 to 100 plus applications in that market map but to see how things have evolved
truly in a year going from just you know a few or as we call them the big four layer twos
to now this entire map of over 20 different protocols almost now I think 10 as of yesterday
different token standards from brc 20 to 201 which launched just days before we finished the
report to then the 721e prunes to now also having various types of chains that are developing that
are not yet defined as an l2 an l1.5 l3 or otherwise to over 10 different rollups a slowly
emerging domain ecosystem and to also see eight different cross chain bridges as well all trying
to hook in various parts of the ecosystem everything from cosmos and icp all the way through
to ethereum threshold and multi-chain as well so uh to me the one thing that really stood out at
the end of the day was just how evolved the layers have become and how many different
projects are being worked on and experiments the same yeah yeah no it's pretty crazy i mean i was
also on a on a on the spaces like a couple of couple of days ago and they were like you know
it was a build on bitcoin spaces and i didn't know the l2 but before i didn't know the the people who
were on the on the show before it's like what like you know for the past years it was like it's really
oh yeah you know we know that person we know that person and now now you know it's like
it's crazy out there right yeah well and and how some people are defining themselves and
there's some hidden secrets some hidden gems out there like map protocol i'll be very transparent
i've heard of map map in the past but i i didn't know that they fully were defined as a as an l2
and then diving into and seeing some of the research and some of the documentation
for them and how things evolved it uh it was new on on my map uh as well so it was uh it was stuff
like that and and other many others actually that to me were just shocking once we were able to dive in
and really get behind not just the you know twitter or x profile but really get into the
docs and see like what are these teams doing are they active are they building but really what is the
core thesis uh for their piece of technology and where does it fit within the stack yeah no very
cool yeah i mean i have a lot of questions but yeah you go go ahead like uh we want to get
everything out of kyle no sure but uh no totally agree that's uh that's a theme that we've also
seen running uh on alex we've actually um even created a spreadsheet to keep track of some of
these l2s we've seen appearing um in no particular order just and this was from from last week not
even updated but uh there's there's uh map ligo b squared network bl2 chainway labs bison labs
rolux b ob uh ha cash elastos libra newbit x.ti aiptp bevm dovi zero sync tectum bitfinity bitbolt
dfs mint layer satoshi bm and also to what what kyle said that's we almost might require someone
full-time just to be doing the background research because it's it's unclear to what degree these are
actually um you know l1 l2s l3s um some of them just seem to be taking a lot of the transactions
off chain and settling off on chain so they're almost uh perhaps almost you can describe them as
a as non-kyc sexes in the way um and others are are on new still experimental standards
so um yeah i think it's uh it's quite it's quite a change from uh say a year or two ago where again
we just had a handful of l2s to now we're trying to sort of make sense and find some sort of way
of sorting uh as all these new uh l2s or at least the projects claiming to be l2
as they appear are either built around brc 20 or these emerging standards well we got some
notes to exchange uh we go i think we've you've got some names i've got some names that we can
we can share all right sounds good yeah yeah we need this public guys
yeah yeah when public when public spreadsheet well that's so that's a great point so one of the
things that in my my history and also talking with spartan we love to put out market maps this
industry and in all industries love to see market maps visual representation of all of the data
that's given and so uh we try to produce two different market maps uh to encompass
encompasses really a lot of what we're talking about today but they are a snapshot they are
a moment in time it's not real time to to what we're talking about today so in the report you
can see two of the latest which was an evolution on one that uh had been put out i think earlier
in 2023 as well so there's a visual out there but yeah we definitely need to make this a live
spreadsheet because uh i mean to the point we've also got drive chains we have various
soft chains and some forks that are now being created we've got space chains spider chains
mine merge change we we have these new experiments to sans point that continue to arise because
we have had such a focus on development for almost five six years again going back to 2017
with ethereum that now we're taking some of those lessons learned and seeing how we can improve
what's missing and where can we evolve from as well and i'll say one last thing alex is a great
example of that as many companies are but i'm sharing the stage with them at the moment so i
mean when alex was first pitched to me at bitcoin frontier fund formerly stax ventures you know it
was just at its core going to be something focused around defi and and very quickly evolved
into a dex very quickly evolved into an amm very quickly evolved into one two three four different
features and as tente and i spoke last week they are they're now their own ecosystem they are now
their own financial layer but truly they are the alex layer they now fit within this bitcoin layers
ecosystem as a layer because they are something that can be further built on top of and that's
a great example of how a company in two years went from not just a protocol or excuse me an
application but to a protocol and then slowly have begun to find their fit in that definition
of where a protocol may be and then built an ecosystem around it as well and i'm seeing others
i see bit flow out there as well i see others that are in the audience who have created similar
ecosystems including writer as well but yeah yeah no no i think i mean it's also a bit a bit of a
dgen show right uh satoshi vm right i mean that was like launched pretty recently uh what are what
what are your thoughts any uh any anything to to share there not sure how down you looked at
attracted in your spreadsheet or car i know who wants to jump in i'll give the shorter shorter
version of an answer i i am still diving into it mostly because again we've we just launched the
report days ago so uh at its hype as it really started to make some noise um with some of its
recent releases to me they are very exciting experiments and experiments only their trials
of seeing what's out there and what could be but they are not uh as philip mentioned as well
and in utiko like this is not financial advice it's educational purposes only like you should
really just look at some of these things as new technologies and new things to try but not
full-in so for me satoshi vm i think it's an interesting evolving experiment with some
of the new things that have been launched but i'm personally still diving into it from a
research perspective okay okay okay okay and yeah i'd say uh the same really uh on our end um
you know uh we're we're sort of a you know busy enough uh just uh running things at alex to
have yet to really fully dive deep into a lot of these new projects but i think um perhaps a
consistent theme that i wouldn't be surprised to see is that um as all these different
alternative solutions are worked on and configured i think eventually they might find that they are
unintentionally reinventing stacks in the sense uh right because yeah at the end of the day they're
like well you know but then we need we need a you know like a global leisure and we're going to need
you know a token to pay the gas fees and you know how can we you know have the smart contracts
that maintain the finality on bitcoin and you know and at the end of the day it's it's almost
you know you have something re-emerging that looks a lot like like stackstacks
and so i think that's something to to to keep in mind uh i think again these these new projects
we we absolutely encourage them again um and then and kyle after the call i'll reach out
you know let's get uh maybe like a tg group going between our teams so we can
start making a spreadsheet and then uh you know a market map of all these new uh projects
that that are launching because i do agree that's that that's really helpful for the space to to
visualize it's it's very bullish uh you know it really captures attentions just to let people know
just how active uh and how hot the pace of bitcoin building has become um and then we can
work on some sort of categorization mechanism because i think uh it's almost uh it's like
trying to drink from uh from a fire hose uh at the moment there's just an overload of information
and it's hard to make you know up from down and you sometimes have to dig into these
into these get hubs into these docks into these communities to sort of uh you know make sense of uh
of what of what is potentially legit innovation um and what is uh something that really isn't
all that inundated but is kind of being marketed uh in the very uh you know in a very snazzy way so
yeah i think um i think that's something that now we we we really do have to have to work on this
we started keeping track of these just uh um just for the sake of it but now i think it's it's
increasingly important part of market research and of keeping track of the evolution of the space
that we do so so yeah this is a pretty interesting point that you also made about this idea of sort of
reinventing stacks right and and yeah i mean i've sort of you know been looking very closely at sort
of everything that's been been happening in the l2 space of course also having thought a lot about
okay what what should stacks look like right as we were originally thinking through sv c and the
makamoto release right by kind of since about a year and a half ago but um but yeah it's
definitely interesting right because i think when when you know we let's say we're in the stacks
ecosystem a year and a half ago um then you know back then a lot of bicorns would have been like oh
but you know we don't like it there as a token um all right or we uh we don't like their separate
consensus like well back in the day it was like why don't you just use lightning right that was
kind of what everyone was saying like oh right and then like now it seems like everyone has
kind of come around like oh yeah like you kind of need like separate state like this is a bit
difficult you need sort of another layer right with some consensus in some way and then the next sort
of thing becomes like or you know it's sort of like well do you need a token right and then a lot
of these l2 is going to seem to be starting out being like well we don't need a token right
um and um because they're kind of like you know trying to sort of you know uh speak the sort of
maxi narrative right um but i think a lot of them sort of are also now coming to realize hey we do
need a token right because we do need to sort of actually incentivize life in this it's just
transaction fees like you know if um then maybe a miner can make like 100k a year and they can
you know not even or validator can make 100k a year if it's just transaction fees in the first
year so they can't even hire a full-time dev in you know the united states to i don't know manage
your validator or something right um so so yeah i think people are kind of coming around to this
idea of the token more and more and um um and yeah it's like pretty but but also curious like
maybe an open question right before also maybe moving it a bit to the audience and inviting some
people up maybe have some thoughts on this but like yeah i don't know if there's something you
know you see all these new things like if we design stacks from the ground up today is there
what would we do differently i mean have some some thoughts based on like some things i've seen
recently but also kind of curious from your guys perspective that's a that's a pretty great
question i think it's a little bit of a skewed answer on my side having been involved and seen
a lot of the applications uh come to light on it and also you know watched mainnet come to launch
and then have seen some of the struggles going forward uh so i think my skewed answer is probably
the most obvious is you know had hoped for or would have looked at uh increased transaction
speed and network throughput uh as well or network capacity um but yeah you know that's a that's a
tomorrow then i can look through upgrades right exactly and that's kind of a that's kind of
a tomorrow problem as you're going to launch because you don't know what the capacity is
going to be you don't know what the impact or the usage is going to look like as you go to launch
and i think with something we tend to forget with this particular industry and when we look at
networks as a category they are not a click click go upgrade they are not as that isn't
a fast upgrade that's not an overnight product release that you put out uh and something like
that on a network takes time to see and also time to adjust for as well i mean to your point with
nakamoto uh there's many moving pieces to that upgrade that will help create faster transaction
speeds and allow for more activity uh within the network's capacity and we're also seeing some of
that struggle on lightning we're also seeing that uh struggle on a few of the other rising protocols
as well because again the demand is all of a sudden there and people have to adjust for it so uh that's
kind of a back to the future moment yeah yeah yeah very good point i mean that was the thing with
such a gpm as well right a lot of friends were pinging me like oh this this and like you know
there's already a testnet but it's like yeah like everyone can do a testnet right because you can
just have like one note and you know that works like doing a testnet is like fairly easy for a
blockchain right i think that's maybe one thing people also kind of awake to pretty quick um like
decentralizing the consensus that's like the big thing right that's what takes so much time um
but um let's write out you you you amuse yourself i'm sure you want to jump in before you yeah
totally um just to jump in on what kyle was saying is that i think i think post nakamoto
we are going to look back at um you know at where stax has been for the past two years and realize
that to some degree this was almost an extension of the testnet because i think having those you know
those fast network speeds and thorough put is really crucial to the to the user experience
um you know something that over the past two years of alex we've seen that i think has uh in the way
impeded um say a flywheel of stax really kicking off is that you know precisely when something
very exciting is happening on stax and you start to get a lot of new network traffic and new users
is when the network would become very heavily congested and people may potentially have you
know transactions stuck for for hours if not sometimes days and then you know it sort of
it sort of fades away and you have you know a core community that stays behind and then the cycle
repeats and each time you're growing the core community a bit more but i think it'll really
be remarkable post nakamoto when you have an experience that's more akin to web 2 that's
more akin to say ethereum l1 or what of a lot of crypto users and others chains are familiar with
that they can you know come to stax uh transact uh relatively quickly and then you know i think
you have the real infrastructure in place to really have that flywheel of of growing uh
of growing community growing dev activity uh you know growing a network activity and
in a sustainable way really going forward so um yeah i think this is really a tremendously
important release for stax and is really a game-changing moment i think for the for the bitcoin
narrative because um you know one of the one of the key purposes you know like what are what
are l2 is there to do it's that uh you know bitcoin already has security and decentralization
covered but of the bitcoin trilama scalability is where it needs uh l2 uh capabilities to really
expand and you know what stax is already providing programability uh with fully explicit clarity
smart contracts but with with nakamoto we are also finally really uh hitting that that that
scalability pain point and based on our ability to to sort of meet that need is i think when we
launch into a new era of bitcoin smart contracts and so that'll be really exciting to see
and um you know although it's said all the time that we're all very early and though it might
not feel that way if you've been in the space a year or two you might feel actually quite old
but uh i think it's absolutely the case and we're really heading towards uh you know a really
remarkable new new frontier here and very excited to see it come to life yeah and also the fun
things a bit that like in in crypto often the bad ux is the alpha right like this is actually
the moment to collect like uh you know do a bunch of things get used to things uh earn earn
a shit ton of points right on uh x-link stacking now bit flow other protocols to come um and and
and yeah do do a lot of things right because in some ways also yeah probably when the nakamoto
release is there right like you know then then then you know it's sort of the time before when
probably things have happened already right right stuff like people got there to build applications
like all of all of these things so um yeah like i think that's that's uh yeah if you're here now
like you know this is probably the kind of solana moment maybe last summer and like you know and
then after that like boom
yeah i think that's a that's a good point and that's you know some of us were talking having
worked with many applications and founders in this ecosystem of what more could we provide
what more uh could be done leading up to that nakamoto release uh as well at our old age as
as was mentioned uh since we feel old being in this ecosystem and that's kind of where
n21 the nakamoto prep school was built is just uh to your point i go you know if this is a moment
similar to that of solana or to other ecosystems that kind of have that early momentum building
up to a a main net or to a large upgrade launch uh you know what is necessary what have others
done that we can learn from to make sure those those pieces are in place so that founders their
teams applications and users have the building blocks and you know the applications running
and and the usability uh to to rock and roll uh not just leading up to the upgrade but also
post as well yeah yeah i think we maybe should take a bit deeper and also anyone wants to say
anything you know just request the mic we'll get you up here but uh but yeah co you're running this
right um um this this n21 program co-running co-running i've got the support so yeah co-running
there's a bunch of us that are doing it um but also mitchell at the foundation uh the stacks
foundation as well uh and a few others behind the scenes but yes mitchell and i will be kind
of the front faces that you all will get to see and talk to uh as well yeah cool cool cool so it's
basically kind of a sort of program like a bit of a acceleration for people who are building on on
stacks and kind of helping them introduce them to the right people right investors right partners
this kind of stuff yeah so we we look at it as very much a go-to-market prep school if you will
or prep program uh so more of a just incubation uh yes it's an accelerant but very much incubating
making sure that you have all of the pieces in place so everything from technical guidance to
yes fundraising guidance and advice and conversations to then talking about business development so
bringing you together with the partners who are also coming together for naka moto
and then looking at things like market making and listing if you do have that as part of your
application uh if you do have a token or otherwise and then helping you to get further resources
whether that's testing or audits and uh as some of those mentors that we have in the program as
well are specialized in you know marketing and and go-to-market because this is a huge upswing
there is a very big momentum shift leading up to and post an upgrade like this so we've brought in
what we see is these kind of six pieces that again applications and projects of all sizes of
all stages will need to take advantage of something like this for those of us who have been a part
of them in the past as well and it's very low lift there's no no fees there's it's uh there's
an application online n21 uh so n as in nancy n21.stacks.co anyone can go there sign up apply we'll
take in a handful of companies uh and then again there's there's a very low commitment just a
couple hours a week checking in with us and mentors and other than that we're just customizing
really towards your needs as a project what are you looking for what are the gaps and
what do you need most leading up to that event and so it'll run from february 15th
to april 15th so just for again a couple months um yeah very cool very cool that's going to be
exciting so lots of lots of lots of lots of things there and a lot of new apps a lot of new maybe
new tokens a lot of points a lot of a lot of cool cool things yeah maybe quickly you know we
want to cover a couple of things that people can do that in stacks defy this week that's new or maybe
some some kind of you know quick nuggets about the protocols right i mean i see that um stacks
dot btc has lined up a couple of things here but um like the new yield on lunar crush what's
what's what's going on uh yes and so um you know alex we've uh you know the projects that we
have listed on our liquidity pool um we've had projects that have been reaching out to
you know also provide yield uh farming rewards and um you know for those listening who might not be
familiar um so you know uh with with with with an amm dex the there's no centralized entities so
the liquidity for the pools are provided by liquidity providers and so users would provide say
5050 uh and value terms to a particular pool and then you receive an lp token in your wallet
and now holding that lp token you do receive a part of the of the of the pool fees and so every
time someone does a transaction with the tokens in that pool you receive uh half of those fees the
other fees are are for alex and when you withdraw those tokens that is when you also collect those
pool fees received um of course what the value would be of when you withdraw there you know then
there's uh the topic of impermanent loss which is if the two tokens change in value relative to each
other um but that that goes a bit more in depth but uh basically how how yield farming then works
is that that liquid liquidity pool token if you if you lock up that token or you stake it for a
particular number of cycles then there are yield farming rewards that uh that you can access which
is so you know in addition to receiving uh the the trading fees for the pool there's also yield
farm rewards um and you know if you go to to the alex app uh along the top menu you go under earn
and you look at farms those will show the yield pool uh the the the the lp pools for which uh
there are their yield farming rewards and so uh yes that's been added to to lunar crush it's
been added um to some of the some of the other tokens that we have listed as well um some of
the other projects that has recently launched on the alex launch pad uh have added yield rewards
it's also been the case for one or two of the of the stacks mean coins i think uh uh welsh uh
has uh has farming yield as well as as well yeah yeah um and i think um you know on the whole
for you know if you if you are a a project having those those uh having yield farm for your token
it adds an extra layer of utility and it also encourages your user it gives them a reason
to lock up and hold your token long term where besides just the the dlp fees uh there's also the
the yield farm fees that you can that you can receive and um so you know if the if the
treating fees may be weren't enough to maybe potentially cover the the ip loss uh it now
adds you know an extra layer of math or perhaps the yield farm fees might be able to to cover those
and again if it's a token that you that you love and you're very bullish with then it's a way that
you can earn more for being a long-term holder so this is a way to incentivize uh committed loyal
long-term holding community members and so it is something that uh you know again and those
listening if you have plans on launching a token in the future if you have a an lp token on alex now
you know please reach out to us uh adding yield farm fees are are open to to all applicants it's
uh it's a permissionless process just reach out for the team and we'll be happy to to assist you with
that yeah cool cool cool cool that's uh a nice nice little new new opportunity there but um
yeah i guess like in terms of the tweets that lined up and i'll mention the
or dig into stacking down a little bit right like the the liquid stacking or state liquid staking
token on on stacks right i mean just just today crossed 10 million stx in uh in tvl reached so
yeah i'll do a little hundred you know i guess it's like 10 million stx but uh yeah so that's
like a new a new milestone there and um uh integration with experts also coming up to
basically uh mint stx directly from the wallet and then you know been working on a bunch of
integrations there basically yeah me i've been lining up some some cool things for for later
this week and next week and after so uh yeah you can see the steady steady stream of um
of stuff coming and also um yeah we'll be doing some more educational content around like
defined stacks and how to use arrested stacks and and things things like that and um yeah so a lot of
a lot of cool cool stuff coming there also the genesis nft drop right so did this did this
thing or stacking dot did this thing where if people would deposit at least 100 stx in the
first cycle which is i guess sort of roughly until the 31st of december then they would get
a genesis nft and we thought it would be pretty straightforward to kind of drop those to everyone
but then we realized it would be about 15 000 people um so that was a bit more difficult than
we expected especially as the chain was like massively clogged recently as you you would
have probably realized so um um so some of the nfts have been have been dropped uh already uh
those are basically some special genesis nfts so essentially the og genesis nft that's for
people who basically registered on the stacking down website uh before it went live so those have
been dropped and then also the special basically did a raffle for uh a hundred gold genesis nfts
and one diamond and and the nice thing or the interesting thing about these genesis nfts is
like well well what what would i do with the stacking down genesis nft it's basically a
it would function as a multiplier on points so if you put some stx on stacking down you
basically earn points every day so very simple like one st stax you've minted is essentially
one point per day and there's some incentives for using defi um and um and yeah points are
basically how community involvement is measured ahead of decentralization of stacking down
in in the future but basically if you have one of these genesis nfts or a special one like a
gold or a diamond one you you you get a bit more points for every point you earn there will
essentially be a multiplier that will be announced in the future and then the gold and the diamond
ones obviously have a higher multiplier so look out for that probably metadata will be update
uploaded in the next couple days and then um they will pop up in your in your wallet so um
yeah exciting exciting sort of treasure hunt you know it's a bit day christmas coming a little
bit later on that on that side but um and then for the regular genesis nfts there'll be a
there'll be a claim that will be launched soon with a button to uh basically get it get it from
there because it was a bit a bit too um intense to drop 15 000 things on stax like we don't have
that in for yet so if anyone is building something there oh yeah by the way if anyone is building
any tools to do airdrops or nft drops or something on stax like please let us know because it's uh
it's not it's not very easy to do um it costs an insane amount in gas but also it's just like
you know it's it's it's it's it's logistically difficult so you spend like probably a week on
or philips spends a week on doing this um but yeah those are some quick nuggets on the on the
stacking down side on the zest protocol side we're entering the final phase of
of auditing um and and then we'll probably announce pretty soon what uh what that means
and what's about to uh about to come but yeah so far um you've been working with the friends
from from coin fabric to get the get the audit through and um yeah we're we're almost almost
nearing the finish line there and then probably how it will work for zest protocol is that there
will be a sort of a closed launch so a bit would like bit flow is done um and um so you would want
to probably request early access if you want to be part of that before you do the open launch so
the reason why we do a closed launch is not it's not necessary to like build build hype or something
but just to kind of check if the ui works well you know if you've taken everything into account with
like gas fees and you know maybe sometimes things taking long on stacks like if that how that how
that impacts the experience and so on um but um but yeah so request early access in zest protocol
dot com if you want to be part of that first batch and you know maybe there is some kind of
genesis nft there or uh or something along those lines you know um learns a lot from what what
second out it recently so um yeah so those are some some some news to uh to share here
and some sort of peaks into the into the future um yeah i'm not sure if there's any anything big
coming up for you this week uh addon or anything you want to share on the on the alec side sure um
i'll share that uh on the alec side that uh um you know i know that's something our community
things have done a lot but we are working with um with two uh stx 20 indexers to integrate them
into the the bitcoin oracle um and once that integration is complete we'll have the
infrastructure in place to do um to have stx 2020 trading on alex and um just something to
oh that's pretty sick yes they're going to be on the decks or how like how will that work
uh is that a different marketplace i think that's that is what we are sorting out now on the on the
back end but uh we'll have we'll have more announcements for that coming up later later
this week and um and just to mention that like uh the way that we've built uh the bitcoin oracle
is so that it is compatible with with with meta protocols and so um even as we were discussing
earlier you have uh you know these these different token standards that might arise whether they're
atomicals or runes or similar um we've built the bitcoin oracle so that uh it can operate with
with with these different token standards because i think regardless of what you call it
the fact still remains that bitcoin is not a smart contract l1 and so it won't be bitcoin itself
that is keeping track of the global state of balances and so as these new standards arise
in order to reduce that reliance on the handful of off-chain centralized indexers the bitcoin
oracle framework allows for there to be a consensus layer where um where key off-chain indexers do an
m-of-n consensus that a particular transaction occurred and also we can use uh stacks's l2
ability to natively read the bitcoin state to independently verify that a transaction took place
so you know i think stx 20 might be the next uh standard that will be applying the bitcoin
oracle framework so we're excited about that uh and news about that is coming later this week
um also this week there'll be uh the start of a new uh ido on the on the alex launchpad so keep an eye
out for that and also uh a change that we are implementing to the alex launchpad on community
feedback is that uh projects that launch uh are agreeing to um what alex is calling a buyback
program where for a one week window after the ido registration launch uh for one week if the token price
i think i can't hear are done users oh there is a dance back so you you would just you just
go for like split second yeah yeah i think i got a spam call that interrupted
uh interrupted me but to continue and so yeah so with the with the the launchpad buyback program
uh for one week after the ido distribution if the if the ido token price falls below the the ido price
users can opt in basically to to return the tokens for about 90 percent of what the what the strike
price was and so for that one week window there will be some some some downside uh protection that
users will receive so uh we'll be excited to see that to see that in action and yes and on the
launchpad our pipeline uh is pretty much full through the end of february and we continue
talking to new to new uh you know to new projects that are launching uh which is again
definitely a significant change from about a year ago you know launchpads are very cyclical
uh when when bull markets come that's when people want to launch new new protocols and projects
and so you know that's what we're seeing at the moment you know again it fits into that
thing you see new projects you see new well twos and um and all sorts of other
of other affiliated builds um but uh but yeah so uh you know articles coming out on our
medium and on our twitter account on the on the launchpad as well so uh be sure to give a follow
if you aren't already um and yeah we'll be excited to to roll those out and discuss those
and uh and they'll up just uh on the whole coming up from alex so yeah use that a power right
yes but they'll also be uh yeah so i guess you know there'll be a medium article published on
this soon but uh you know because with the with the ords game launch it was we had intended to do
a bit of a um a bit of a of a quick sort of test run a beta launch beforehand
but then the stacks chain got completely clogged by stx 20 um and that was no longer a possibility
so you know with ords games we went ahead and we weren't able in that launch to incorporate
a power now with this upcoming launch there will be a portion of tokens that are allocated
to community a power uh whereas at a certain registration block on a first come first serve
basis users with a power will be able to to register tickets and the tickets that they
register these will be winning tickets these won't be subjected to to the lottery and so and so a power
will you know again take its place as an ideal access token and um yeah for those listening
weren't familiar um you know a power it's it's non-transferable and non-tradable and it can
only be earned through either alex staking or through yield farming and so um it's also a
benefit to the projects because those users who have acquired a power if they're buying your ido token
these are users who have a proven track history of being long-term alex holders and loyal community
supporters uh and those are the kinds of members you want in your community um and so you know
we're we're eager to to see that come back um and again you know as with anything it's
a continuous work in progress we always have our ear to the ground to our community on twitter
and especially on on discord and the feedback that they're providing us and they drive
the course of innovation and improvements that we make and so uh and so everyone we do listen and
continue letting us know how we're doing what you'd like to see next uh and we will respond
you know uh you are ultimately alex at the end of the day so uh you know thank you very much
you know we we are immensely grateful for the for the support uh of our community release since
day one through the present end uh yeah are looking forward to continue growing and expanding
into the nakamoto release sbtc uh and and beyond into into the next true bull cycle as it takes
hold and um you know i do believe uh again not financial advice but in my heart of heart of
hearts we uh you know new all-time highs are are in bitcoin's future um it's not a matter to me
of if only if of when but if you've been with us this long then uh you know i think we're we're close
to the to the to the light at the end of the tunnel and just a whole new a whole new way of
coming along yeah let's let's do it let's do it let's do it but um yeah i guess before we round
round things off here so you're dropping off a little bit or you know as they have hard stops
and things like that but um super small nuggets i just got a message it seems like stacking now
is on the bankless airdrop hunter well not sure what that would mean but um well people are people
are taking notes people are taking notes but anyway so um um maybe quick uh you know call to
actions rounding off where can people find you to you know learn more or what should they be doing
what should they be taking away to do after this um yeah carol you want to go first yeah i'll be
short and sweet uh you know appreciate everybody here appreciate everybody and what they have been
building and working on over the last two and a half years uh you know really providing uh myself
and my co-authors at spartan the the opportunity and pathway to dive deep to research uh what's not
just happening on stacks but all across bitcoin layers and how that's connecting into the bigger
industry of web3 so thank you uh to all of you and all that you do and continue to do and build
in the past and going forward as as well uh yeah feel free to check out the report would love everyone
to read it if you and your company or project were not mentioned please do reach out dms are open and
available again it's a snapshot in time so there may be some companies not included or are preparing
for the next iteration of that but would love to hear what you're building on and would love to
learn more so please don't hesitate to kindly let us know and educate us on what you are building
you can also get that i think there's a tweet tied up at the top if you would like to download it
but also you can go to bitcoinlayersreport.com and download it for free it's free for everybody
30 pages three sections talks about the economy awakening to the bitcoin layers as a resistance
going through all that's happening across layer and specifically around l2s and our thoughts and
outlook to 2024 this year and into 2025 as well so lots of fun exciting nuggets in there and lastly
check out n21 n21.stacks.co i would love to have you a part of the Nakamoto prep program if that's
of interest to you please do reach out to myself mitchell or again the website to apply and yeah
again thank you everybody and tyco phillip thank you very much for having me it was it was great
to be on the side of the table today yeah yeah yeah more more to come more to come and then
i guess next time check out house spaces where where he's hosting of course but um yeah done
quick uh quick roundup what should what should people do you know before next week uh sure i'd
say you know our two uh our two principal social channels would be to to follow the alex twitter
account to um also uh join our our discord discord.gg slash alex lab uh to be very much in touch with
our community mods and uh and to pose those sort of feedbacks questions and um and all else that we
follow um and yeah a lot of a lot of announcements coming out this week a new a new ido launch uh
getting ready soon and more to come were really booked uh through february and going into march
and so oh yeah definitely uh stay tuned and oh and of course uh because i know you know we've
been having a lot of questions for it and our announcement coming about uh stx 20 indexing and
integration in the bitcoin oracle and what the next steps will be from there and so uh so yeah
lots of lots of exciting things uh stay tuned yeah amazing and then um yeah from here like
you know follow at zest protocol on twitter request early access on zestprotocol.com you'll
want to do that but i won't spill the beans too much i already said it earlier why and uh and yeah
stack some stx on on stacking down get some points um and mint st stacks and yeah use it use it in
defile not the power of your stx in in defile and it's uh at at stacking down on on twitter
great well it was uh it was really great to to to uh chat here fit about to i had to drop off but
he will be back next week and we'll be back next week probably hadan will be back as well right uh
so we'll be uh we'll be here with another episode of the stacks yeah oh yeah it's always rotating
a bit through but at least the song on the alex side uh you know to kind of complete the trinity
um but um but yeah so that's uh next week same time um and uh and yeah then we can have a
quick chat about all the exciting things that have happened in that that week of uh of stacks
defile so um yeah thanks everybody for tuning in you know remember that ux is the alpha
and uh agreed see you see you all very soon and happy happy happy stacking happy points
collecting and regen yeah absolutely thank you everyone for joining thank you kyle for joining
the space thank you tyco for hosting uh and stacks as always thank you everyone for listening
take care all right guys see you soon