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Stacks DeFi Show #100
Recorded: Feb. 24, 2026 Duration: 0:40:57Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everybody, we're just waiting to get everyone on here but very excited to chat
StaxDeFi here for DeFi show number 100.
Stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you. hello everybody quick check if the advisor is here as well yes can you hear me fantastic amazing
amazing amazing amazing i can't hear you so um yeah, I think we can maybe, you know, do a couple of tweets and let everyone know that we're here. on Stacks, which are both great milestones.
So yeah, very excited to chat about that.
I'm just in real time going to quickly write everyone that were here
and retweeting the show.
And yes, stacks DeFi show number 100 going, the advisor? Everything going all right today?
Everything all right. Everything great. Good to see ZSV2 going live. I guess we're going to talk
a bit about it in a few minutes. Yeah. I think great for the rest.
in a few minutes.
Yeah.
I've been great for the rest.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Now, yeah, I guess first of all,
welcome everybody.
It's episode number 100
of the Stacks DeFi shows,
a place where we always come
and talk about all things
going on in the DeFi landscape
on Stacks with the builders,
currently hosted by
the Stacks handle,
as you can see.
And yeah, just our space, our place to speak as builders
and to, you know, chat, answer questions
and, you know, dive into the world of Stacks DeFi.
Yeah, the friends at Stacks who's asked us to say one thing,
which is that everything that we share here is for informational purposes only
and should not be considered financial advice.
But other than that, we have full free reign.
So, yeah, without further ado, maybe let's do a couple quick intros
in case episode number 100 is episode number one for some people tuning in.
Yeah, my name is Tycho, co-founder of Zest Protocol,
the largest DeFi protocol on Stacks by TVL,
and the home of SBTC on Stacks with almost 700 SBTC earning about 4% yield there.
SBTC earning about 4% yield there. And Zest Protocol V2 just went live with USDCX and soon
a lot of USDH as well. So yeah, you want to make sure to check that out. So yeah, I guess without
further ado, the advisor, do you want to give a quick intro and then we can dive in?
Sure.
Actually, the GPSC is also here, so we can also bring him up, but go for it.
I see him as speakers, I guess.
Yeah.
We'll be able to speak in a moment.
So I'm the advisor at PTC.
For those of you that don't know, we have've been acting in the Stacks ecosystem for quite a while.
I've been, let's say,
hand-marketing activities for pushing the Stacks ecosystem.
And also I actively create, let's say,
pre-con-indified content on my Twitter page.
I will keep it brief as usual.
And I will let JPSC maybe say a few words about himself.
Hey, what's up guys? Happy Tuesday. Episode 100, big, big monumental day for the Stacks
ecosystem with Zest B2 going live and Stacks DeFi show number 100. That's huge. I am the
co-host of the Deorganized Let's Go Morning Show
and the community manager for Zest and Stacking DAO
and creator of the GigaPepe Spaceship Club.
So also an NFT artist.
I'm out here just kind of trying to spread the high-frequency vibes
and cover everything that is going on,
all the innovation taking place in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Yeah, fantastic.
Fantastic. Great to have you guys here.
If more people want to join, then you know where to request that.
We're all speakers, so we don't see your requests,
but the Rick behind the Stacks handle definitely will.
But yeah, I think we've got some great people here.
I see some Leo cats out there as well.
Also shout out to Leo for the collaboration around the Zest Protocol V2 launch.
Maybe we can pin that one up here, or maybe the advisor, you can find that tweet and pin
it up here because it's quite a nice little touch, you know, from all the communities working together.
But yeah, maybe as we put some of those tweets up here,
maybe also from the StackingNow account and so on.
Maybe just sharing a quick overview of what Zest Protocol V2 brings, right?
Because it's been quite anticipated for a while.
We also, you know, finished it for some time,
just waiting for the stablecoin liquidity to flow in.
And that's here now.
There's about 3.5 million stablecoins on the Zest Protocol V2.
Most of that is USDCX and also USDH.
There's a lot more coming.
So yeah, definitely keep an eye out for that.
But yeah, if you basically go to app.zestprotocol.com now
or you go to our Twitter and you open the link that's there,
then you'll find the new Zest Protocol.
And basically there's a markets toggle,
so you will still find the old V1 markets with all your positions and everything is like the same as it was before.
But now there's also the new V2 market, and that V2 market has a few new things, right?
And basically building on the milestones that the V1 market achieved.
So a couple of things to run through there.
About 15% of all the BTC on Stacks is deployed on the Zest Protocol V1.
That's almost 700 as BTC.
Total TVL peaked at around 100 million.
Borrow activity peaked at around 10 million.
Around 10 million of stablecoin liquidity unlocked, about 25% of all the stacking DAO LSTs deposited, right?
Also the largest protocol, not just for SVTC, but also for STX and for stacking DAO also
for the STX LST.
And then a lot of yield strategies that are obviously built on top, right? People deploy SVTC, they get their SVTC yields,
you know, borrow stable coins and so on and so forth.
And, you know, that's kind of the base that's in place.
And then obviously Zest V2 is, you know, the logical next step.
And Zest Protocol V2 basically bundles, you know,
some of the big innovations that have happened in DeFi lending, you know, in the past two years since Zest Protocol v1 launched into, you know, a version two of Zest Protocol on Stacks.
And yeah, that mainly, you know, includes, you know, three things I think are the most important, or I guess four things are the most important for users.
Of course, the first thing is that Zest Protocol v2 has USDC X, right?
So that's the closest thing to USDC that we have on the Stacks network.
About 3 million you can borrow there today at around a half a percent,
which is very, very low.
Then Zest Protocol v2 has this really new way of calculating risk,
which basically means for users that they can borrow a lot more,
or there's going to be a lot more borrowing capacity on the V2 compared to the V1.
And that is because on the V1, when you would borrow against an asset,
borrowing was limited because every asset that you would borrow against another asset,
you know, would have the same LTVs, right? So say you would borrow against SBTC,
you could borrow against SBTC at a certain loan to value, right? Like say 70%. And that would mean
that then any assets you could borrow against SBTC at 70%, whether it's stablecoins, STX, right, or more volatile assets.
Now, that meant that basically, you know,
users could borrow a lot of, say, STX against SBTC,
and as a result, the amount of STX that could be borrowed
had to be limited, right,
because it's a much more volatile asset than, say, a stablecoin.
And now with V2, that completely changes.
So you have these
things, this thing called risk groups, which basically means that, you know, we can now
say, hey, if you borrow STX against SBTC, you know, you can only borrow 40%. And if
you borrow stablecoins against SBTC, now you can borrow 60% or 70%. And yeah, that's a great innovation because it means that we can just
uncap the borrowing on something like STX because we always know it's at the right risk level.
So it's a really important backbone for Stax DeFi, allowing for way more capital
efficiency, safer handling of volatility, higher borrow caps, easier onboarding of new
assets. When a new asset comes in, you can really configure it exactly how it should
be. And yeah, have good parameters and of course very high security as a result.
Then there's also liquidation has got a lot smoother.
So maybe some of you who have been unfortunate enough to experience the liquidation on ZestProtocol v1
So that it works basically the same as like, you know, Aave V3.
saw that it works basically the same as like Aave v3.
So, you know, the debt is liquidated and immediately the full position can be liquidated or half the position in V1's case.
Now there is like a smoothing curve and also built on the, essentially on all the experience of, you know, with liquidations that we built up, you built up over the last couple of years.
And there's basically a smoother liquidation curve.
So when you hit the liquidation thresholds, you don't get liquidated in one go,
but just much more smoothly.
And then finally, also on SPTC, you can choose to not have your collateral rehypothecated.
So it's possible to tell the protocol, hey, I don't want you to lend out my collateral.
That also means that you earn less yield.
But if you want that, then that's possible.
And that's important for some institutional participants that we've been talking to.
So, yeah, that's a quick overview of Zest Protocol v2.
It means a lot of things for a lot of people in the ecosystem, right?
For stacking DAO, it means that there can be a lot more aggressive borrowing
against state stacks and state stacks BTC,
which obviously makes stacking DAO a lot better.
For Hermetica, it means that there can be a lot more borrowing of USDH
against a range of assets which of course helps
their hbtc launch and you know hbtc is um you know uh basically built upon zest protocol v2 right as
the as the bedrock so that's also um you know a very big a big enabler there and um and yeah then
obviously this whole boroughlin infrastructure also also helps, the swapping and decentralized exchanges like the BitFlows and Alex's of this world
where it's basically much easier to collateralize assets, borrow them,
provide liquidity, arbitrage, and do all of that.
So yeah, that's a brief recap, a brief overview.
But obviously if you want to check out more,
then have a look at the article that's it's pinned above but for now yeah feel free to you know jump in with
anything there but no you know the advisor we've been working on this quite a lot for
quite a while and yes if you have any any words on the Zest V2 more from your perspective, you know, on the marketing slash education side?
Maybe I can also take over a bit while we wait for questions. And like, lot of people realize i mean zesp2 is also like a new pr for the
stack-siff ecosystem because for example hbtc vault which will launch pretty soon also for
instance like leverages just as a in the background like All the key strategies that people have been running on the V1,
they will now be running it in the V2.
And we'll know that this is stable connectivity
or defectivity shows how healthy an ecosystem is.
So in practice, this is V2.
It marks a new beginning for the Stax ecosystem.
Almost like it's the 2.0 version for the Stax DeFi ecosystem in general.
Might be a bit too bullish, but I'm really serious about it, let's say.
Yeah, amazing.
Amazing.
Amazing, amazing. Amazing. Amazing. And yeah, how's it going on your own?
Any thoughts on what's happened over the course of the past week?
I mean, the V2 is kind of the main event, of course,
which is launched today.
But maybe there are other things you've been seeing
across the ecosystem, of course,
like all the AI agents kind of breaking breaking the
chain i think is one one notable thing maybe you've seen uh you've seen a bit more of that
yeah this ai is getting insane tycho i feel like um you know anybody that has any cool ideas or
you know idea for an app uh you know it is becoming easier and easier to to bring those
app, you know, it is becoming easier and easier to bring those to fruition. You know, I think that,
you know, the content is getting better from it. You know, with the seed dance stuff, it's crazy.
You can't even tell, you know, what is, you know, AI anymore versus, you know, maybe some
IRL content. It's really hard to tell. But there's plenty going on. I saw that Brandon
Marshall was playing around with OpenClaw. He gave his AI BTC agent its own GitHub account.
Now it's building dashboards for other agents and earning bounties paid in bitcoin it's it's insane you know uh we saw a lot
of new unique active wallets uh and you know transactions spiking uh in february it was kind
of stable for a lot of the months that preceded it and you know february it seems like things are
taking off and i'm wondering how about how much of these new wallets are AI agents you know the AI
BTC guys are doing really well by doing onboarding through open claw uh they've launched an agent
tasked with you know onboarding other agents into the Bitcoin ecosystem so it's just all very very
interesting I feel like um you know it's we're not too far off from the singularity
I feel like we're not too far off from the singularity.
Yeah, for sure.
This is kind of the beginning of a big theme that will play a huge role in crypto.
It feels a little bit like the last time we were in a bear market.
The depths of that were just after the FTX collapse.
And then, you know, one, two months later, we saw runes and ordinals coming up and these
things which kind of sparked this big, you know, rise in Bitcoin programmability that
became like a really big theme of the subsequent, you know, the subsequent bull essentially,
right?
After the Bitcoin ETF approval and so on.
And I have that feeling a little bit now as well with regards to all these, you know,
these AI tools and the speed of development of AI, because that is certainly going to spill over into crypto.
I mean, everyone is talking about institutional adoption and how they are a bit, you know,
a bit jaded by that, or it's not been exactly what they thought it would
be. But what if DeFi protocols or layer ones were not for institutions? What if they were actually
for AI agents instead? And that's probably a nice way to think about it because
onboarding institutions into crypto is obviously useful,
but they already have a system and it works,
even though it's analog and clunky and they can get some efficiency gains.
But instead, a lot of these things will probably bank
and facilitate a new economy, an agent economy
that definitely doesn't have access to TradFi.
So I think as these agents become more and more autonomous and
they start doing more and more things you know i think we'll definitely see a resurgence of um
you know and essentially l1s and specifically d5 because it's basically uh yeah it could just turn
into finance for for ai agents right so um yeah it seems like a natural fit you know like it's just it's their
currency right like it it's their language you know they can understand it and kind of navigate
it and uh utilize it the best you know so i i think it's going to be really interesting to see
things get automated and you know go go to your ai agent in the morning and see what the best plays
where's the alpha.
And it's already got a list of things
that it's already done for you while you were asleep.
So automation is the name of the game.
Yeah, I think also it's interesting
because I'm currently, for example,
talking to large institutions looking to deploy onto Zest V2.
And they're like, oh, we need to whitelist the link
and we need to put this in our custodian and, oh, we need some more time
and, you know, we need to make sure we have everything properly set up
and so on, which is obviously makes a lot of sense
and a lot of diligence there.
But it's very complicated for them to actually verify
and, you know, they have very complicated protocols to verify
and understand that the URL they're dealing with
is the actual protocol and the whitelist
and so on and so forth.
And, you know, an AI agent will just speed run these things, right?
So, yeah, I think that there is a lot there
and it's exciting to see this kind of AI action on Stacks.
The chain is currently quite busy with all the activity there.
And I think we'll also see quite a few new things coming out of Satoshi AI,
like the AI agents
on stacks.
And yeah,
I think it's good to
keep an eye out on
that as well.
Yeah.
The cookie's real.
Yeah, let me just
pin that announcement
tweet as well here.
But yeah, I think there's some good things coming to this tax ecosystem.
And yeah, all the infra is coming out, right?
With JustV2, then the Hermetica HPTC, then the BizFlow and Alex Roth,
you know, the concentrated liquidity taxes.
I think BizFlow just passed their final test,
so we'll probably see more from them soon if they're not here personally
to announce that.
But, yeah, so, you know, there'll be more of these spaces
with announcements of new products in the coming weeks.
But yeah, just a heads up to Rick behind the Stacks handle.
If you see people who want to speak, just let them up.
But yeah, until then, any other things that you've seen from the ecosystem, the advisor
this week?
Sorry.
Can you hear me? from the ecosystem, the advisor this week.
Sorry. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. No, I mean, I think like you recapped it quite well. Like there's been like the agent, the agent, let's say stuff has been quite interesting.
And I'm not sure we talked last week about it
but there's been a few reports
coming out from
Nisari announcing
mentioning, industry was mentioning about
how stocks
basically is going quite fast
and especially in the Bitcoin
SA ecosystem is definitely
establishing
as the leader
and something of that related but yesterday Rupes posted ecosystem is definitely establishing as the leader. And
something I've done related, but
yesterday, Roofs posted
this tax ecosystem map.
And I think it was a great job just
recapping a bit what's going on in the
ecosystem, what tools can you use?
And yeah, it's been a while
since someone did a tax ecosystem
map, so maybe just a quick shout out
Rooes.
And I see Duckfather is a speaker and wants to speak, so I'm going to let him take the mic.
AGMGM.
Yeah, first props to the team and props to the real builders, right?
No matter the candles, you guys are shipping.
So I'm super excited to have a look at all the
updates. I have just one minor question. Maybe you already covered that because I was a bit late.
So how is the migration going from v1 to v2? And the second thing is, and this is a bit more like
deeper, so what are your priors? What kind of chains, what kind of tech will these agents use?
Is it still completely unclear?
Will it be in L2 like stacks?
What are your opinions here?
Yeah, I think a very good point because we didn't touch on that, on the migration.
I mean, when you come to the Zest Protocol app,
and if you have any assets on the Zest Protocol v1,
there'll be a prompt.
And if you want to migrate, you can do that in one click,
and then it just moves your assets over.
Now, that is if you don't have any borrowed positions.
Of course, if you have a borrowed position,
then that obviously is something that won't just be closed for you, right?
So the V1 stays around, right?
You can always find it.
It's just that, you know, further borrowing activity has been capped on the V1.
And the rates are a bit lower, right?
Obviously, as a result of some of the efficiencies introduced by
the VTube.
So I think slowly over time, right, more and more assets will move over from V1 to V2,
especially as, you know, V2 just has all these exciting stablecoins to borrow.
And yeah, that's obviously what people really turn up for on the lending protocol. So yeah, it's something that will just slowly happen over time.
But yeah, essentially the good yields are on V2,
so that's where you want to be.
And then on to your second point,
yeah, what are these AI agents going to use?
I mean, obviously, they're definitely going to use Ethereum a lot
because that's where most of the DeFi liquidity and activity is. use i mean obviously like you know they're definitely going to use ethereum a lot because
that's where where most of the defi liquidity and activity is they're obviously going to use solana
a lot because it's very fast and um you know great great tech but i think they're going to use
they're going to use everything right and there's probably going to be um going to be a trade for, you know, for using, yeah, for other L1s too, right? And specifically
for Stacks, right? Because Stacks is just, you know, kind of the only game in town when it comes
to, you know, being a Bitcoin layer too with an ecosystem and working applications. So, yeah,
what makes sense? Well, obviously, you know, there'll be AI agents on Ethereum all day long.
They'll be on Solana.
They'll be on SWE.
Probably on something like Aptos, right?
L2s could do well, but, you know, it's...
And that's Ethereum L2s, but it's still unclear how that accrues value to their token.
And then, of course, Stacks, right?
Which is obviously very clear value accrual mechanism for the token.
Just as these AIs start, AIs transact, they pay STX in gas fees.
But I think, you know, important, I think just the thing that's important
to take away from all this AI stuff in terms of narrative is that,
you know, we've been in this market where people have been saying,
oh, you know, all these L1s don't earn enough fees to sustain their valuations
and so on and so forth.
But if that story turns around from these L1s being businesses
for institutional adoption of crypto,
which I think is how people are viewing it today,
and they're flipping it on its head to view L1s or L2s
as essentially infrastructure for AIs to trust each other,
then obviously the valuation models also look very different.
So I think that's, yeah, that's going to be a, that's a key takeaway.
And, you know, L1s not just as businesses for stratified adoption,
but rather as trust layers for an autonomous
internet. So yeah, maybe good to think a bit about that. I will at least. It's still a
thought that I'm going to develop more over the coming weeks.
Great takes. Thank you, man.
Yeah.
And any other takes maybe from the advisor from GPSC on that?
To be honest, I seem to develop a bit of my pieces around it.
I do agree that agents are going to play a big factor in the future of, let's say, web3.
But yeah, I didn't really, to be honest, I didn't really have the time to think I was going to
develop from here. But also regarding the Dockerfile first question about the migration,
on the Zest docs you can already find the whole section about how to migrate even manually if you want and everything so
so like the content is out there bro nobody's reading man this is why i'm asking you know how
that works you have to tell that you have to make it you have to clip it otherwise there will be
like what what reading what are you talking about man, yeah. I'm sure more content is coming out also on the side of our migration.
Everything has been set up.
The announcement is live now, but more content about migration is going to be out too.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Yeah.
Any other things we should talk should talk about or anyone else who
wants to who wants to come up to to chat um otherwise we can uh we can slowly you know
slowly um turn turn uh turn towards what's happening next week and uh next week's spaces. But yeah, anything that you think we haven't talked about?
Yeah, I talked with Big Mac.
I was on a call with Big Mac for a few hours yesterday
and kind of exploring some of the stuff on the HODL MM.
And I'm really, really excited to get familiarized with it.
And I'm going to be hosting a boot camp uh you know
we're we're working on setting a date but um you know it's it's been really cool to kind of
experience that and see how they're the the hot element works and um you know just getting to
connect with mac so uh definitely be giving the bitflow handle a follow and you know paying
attention i feel like zespi2 is like the first domino in a line of a lot of updates that are coming to the ecosystem that are going to make the user experience a lot better.
And new innovation coming to Bitcoin via stack.
So keep your ear low to the ground, guys.
There's a lot to get excited about.
Yes, sir. Yes, about. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Anyhow, one question I saw as a comment.
Someone was asking here,
do you have Yield enabled to participate in dual stacking on V2?
And certainly, yes, absolutely.
That's the whole point. So on Zest Protocol v2, you will receive the dual stacking yield on your SBDC, which is 3.86%.
And probably in the future, like not right now, but like at a later stage,
this will likely be disabled on v1 and only enabled on v2.
So it makes sense to slowly move over those assets.
And as we speak, literally, you know,
I saw just another SPTC moving over from v1, v2.
It's like you made the UI very tight,
so it gives real-time updates even if you don't refresh it.
So I just saw the SPTC number, you know, ping up one.
So, yeah, it's nice to see in real time the migrations happening
and the assets flowing over.
So, yeah, that's really great to see.
And I think, you know, just like that, without further ado,
I think we should, you know, leave everyone to it,
to the migration and playing around with the V2.
And feel free to ask us, of course, if you have any questions.
The docs are obviously very detailed and things like that, but there's more.
And we'll obviously be communicating a lot from the Zest Vertical account
about all the innovations and all the new things in the coming weeks,
and the coming days, and the coming hours.
So stay tuned for that.
Make sure to follow at Zest Protocol on Twitter.
Follow at StackingNow for all the things related to staked stacks and stacking.
And, yeah, of course, follow the Advisor GPSc for more things stacks
and the dog father for all
his great
content and crunching sats
episodes of course
but yeah any final words
advisor gpsc dog father before we
finish up
as usual just make sure
just make sure to follow
stacking now on theest Twitter accounts because various
of the news go live.
Yesterday, for instance, V2 has been announced.
And while for Discord, if you want to hang out with other people in the Stacks ecosystem,
have fun with activities organized by GPSC, make sure you join both StackingNow and Zest
Discord. That's it on my end.
Yeah, thank you for having me. I definitely have to dive deeper into that.
You should all do that. We should support the Reelbuilders.
Don't just have your BTC sitting idle. You know,
make it work for you, right? That's like passive income.
You should always strive for that.
Yeah, that's right.
GPSC, final words.
Yeah, right on, Tycho.
Congrats on episode 100 of the Stacks DeFi show.
Just a huge, huge accomplishment, you know, and keep building the change.
This is the way, right?
You know, this is the most change. This is the way, right? You know,
this is the most historic time in Bitcoin's history and I'm here for it. So I'm excited and I've got the high frequency vibes. We're going to be getting together in the Stacking Down Discord
around 1 p.m. ET for the weekly screen share. So tune in. We're going to be making some content
making some content and, you know, kind of taking a deep dive,
and, you know, kind of taking a deep dive, take a look at Zeswe2 today.
take a look at Zesri too today.
Amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
So yeah, then heads up to everyone.
We're going to, it doesn't end at 100.
There is more. There is life after 100.
There is 101 and 102 and beyond.
But yeah, thanks everyone for joining.
I see a lot of great people here.
Familiar faces, Trippamonkey, Nakamoto1, Stax, Africa,
and ipeter, chadstx.btc, and many more.
Also, I see a couple of Welshies,
a couple of Leo cats.
And yeah, so thanks everyone for joining.
And maybe one final word, Trihana,
anything you want to drop in
before we close the spaces?
Oh, Jim, Jim. I just want to say congratulations on V2.
Yep, we have been waiting for this, and now it's out.
I just want to say thank you so much for putting in so much work for Stacks.
Though the markets are not really good,
but this is something that will
bring in more people to the community and uh big shout out to you to you and the team that
are putting in so much work at zest and staking dow thank you so much appreciate it thank you very
much and uh yeah appreciate all the the work that you do. And if there's any questions or anything coming out of the morning shows, you know, let me on V2 or other things, let me know. I'm looking forward to, yes, coming Make sure to follow all of us for the latest updates.
And yeah, then looking forward to building up stacks and Bitcoin DeFi
one upgrade at a time.
So going to be back next week, same time, same day with episode number 101.
And then we take it from there.
But yeah, appreciate it, guys.
Thanks for joining.
Bye, guys.
Bye. Thank you.
Host
stacks.btc
from
Stacks Staking
Hermetica
from
Hermetica USDh
