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Stacks DeFi Show #98
Recorded: Feb. 10, 2026 Duration: 0:35:12Space Recording
Short Summary
In the latest episode of the Stacks DeFi show, key updates include the launch of Zest Protocol v2, which offers new borrowing opportunities and competitive yields, alongside a significant partnership with Fireblocks to enhance security. Despite recent market challenges, Stacks demonstrates resilience, maintaining its position in the top 100 tokens, while addressing vulnerabilities highlighted by the VALAR BurpDex exploit.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everybody.
Yes, we can hear you.
Fantastic.
I had some small issues
to get up here,
but we've made it.
We're here on episode 98 of the Stacks DeFi show.
Yeah, we're closing in on that number 100,
which I guess is the magic number where we hit like 100 DeFi shows in a row.
But yeah, this is the space where we discuss all things related to Stacks DeFi.
You know, all the updates, all the latest stuff that's been happening from across the ecosystem.
And yeah, this is the space kind of by builders for builders.
So, you know, we don't work at Stacks stacks we're just building on stacks right and uh yeah
it's the place where everyone who builds on stacks uh gets together once a week um on a voluntary
basis to just chat about what uh what's been going on um and um and yeah the only thing that
the stacks handle asks us to say is to just briefly remind everyone that everything we share is for informational purposes only
and should not be considered financial advice.
But other than that, it's free reign.
Free reign to us here.
And yeah, I'm just coming out of a very exciting
cloud code hole of engineering prompts and more things.
So yeah, we're building.
We're building.
So yeah, but maybe we should do some brief intros before we dive into it.
I'll just start briefly.
My name is Tycho, co-founder of Zest Protocol, the largest protocol on stacks, so the largest
DeFi protocol on stacks in terms of TVL,
home to over 600 SBTC.
That's earning 3% to 4% yield there.
So one of the highest BTC on BTC yields in the ecosystem, even though it's been coming down a little bit,
I think, as the market has adjusted.
And yeah, that's briefly about me.
Maybe the advisor, you want to pick it up from there.
Sure, sure.
For those of you that don't know me, I'm the advisor at BTC.
I write content on my Twitter account about Bitcoin, DeFi, and L2s with a focus on stocks
and actively work within the stocks ecosystem
helping out with marketing the initiative and activities so we'll keep it short like that
and i also see tim in the in the audience maybe we can invite him if i want to talk also jp by the way
fantastic fantastic that uh yeah we can definitely do
that i'm not not co-host currently but um but you know if uh yeah yeah yeah and bring them up then
we're here for it you know but um but yeah in terms of news um and we've been doing a couple
of quick ones right because like um yeah we're pretty much you know
heads down building same same goes for for for the other applications in the ecosystem and mainly
waiting for you know liquidity to come in from from Stax core from the Stax endowments which
you know was liaising with all the all the LPs who are deploying stablecoins on stacks and so on and so forth.
So I guess we can make it a bit of a shorter one this week,
like some of the past weeks.
But yeah, Zest Protocol v2,
which is, of course, a very exciting new market
that features USDCX, is on mainnet.
So there is like about 2 million USDCX is on mainnet.
So there's like about 2 million USDCX that can be borrowed there at any given time. And that number will probably grow pretty quickly over the coming weeks and just getting
the numbers here.
But yeah, around 2 million ready to be borrowed
and already 100k is borrowed.
And the borrow rate right now is just 0.3%.
Now, if you want to get access to that,
I mean, you can borrow against staked STX,
you can borrow against staked StaxBTC,
you can borrow against SBTC and so on.
If you want to be part of that,
then make sure to comment and retweet on the Zest tweets,
the first one pinned here.
And yeah, all the high yields are going to move to that market and awaiting an eight-figure
stablecoin deployment coordinated by the Stacks Endowment to really kick things off there. And yeah, that's kind of the main thing to share
from the Zest protocol side.
And soon we'll open up V2 to the broader public,
but if you want to get access to it now
while the rates are low,
then this is the moment.
But the advisor usually also write this,
you know, what's happening on Stacks,
right, from the StackingDow account.
So maybe you want to run through
some of the updates that you wrote there
just to get everyone up to speed on the last week.
Sure, sure.
So let me open it also again
just to make sure I don't miss any points.
But as everyone knows, I guess at this point, like every two weeks, what's happening on Stacks, let's say, if the article gets out.
So, like, the most important news I would say in the last two weeks have been for sure the Fireblocks integration.
for sure the Fireblocks integration.
So for those of you that don't know Fireblocks,
it's one of the leading platforms
for securing, let's say, digital assets.
And it has like over 2,400 clients,
which already use them because of, let's say,
the way for the security that Fireblocks enabled them.
And now we integrate the stocks. the way for the security that Fireblocks enabled them,
and now we integrate the stocks. So imagine now you have like,
you have these clients of Fireblocks
that already have a ton of liquidity and capital
that can now be deployed on stocks,
which is, let's say, a big thing.
Especially when you think about the fire stocks
has been, say, eyeing more and more this kind of institutional
great infrastructure, like all this kind of integration just
keeps adding, standing to stocks. So I feel like
this integration is just the latest one that
is going to help the ecosystem get more and more institutional clients.
Then, something we covered
last week, there's this article that I wrote about the upgrades that are happening to the
stocks ecosystem. So from HBTC, with the vault of Medica to other NMDAX from Bitflows, SV2,
there's a bunch of stuff that is happening and coming all together to to stocks so definitely
go check my article a bit of stuff shilling here then uh zest is actually on the v2 there's
already 1.5 billion usd cx now live that can be borrowed and the the borrowing rate is like less than 0.5% and the SBTC yield, which was taking is like 4%.
So basically getting paid to borrow.
So this is like a great moment to actually, let's say, play around with the V2 and borrow some liquidity.
Granite also has enabled USDCX markets.
Then like, you Tyco were talking about, you know, like cloud and like AI,
something really, really cool that I've seen
is AI BTC basically is enabling like,
if you're playing around with agents,
you can now give like on-chain capabilities on Stacks
and become to these agents.
So you, I think like this could be interesting with the thing for stacks where
you could become a layer where agents start you know like swapping trading btc with other assets
and deploy stuff on d5 so definitely something cool to explore i'll say i get better and jacob
also teased like with a picture of the token HPTC contract deployment.
So we know that HPTC is almost here.
And the last two news of the last two weeks are Rubes posted a picture,
posted something, sorry, on Twitter about Tenero, which is like the leading
analytics platform for Bitcoin ecosystem.
And Bidflow basically the one of the most volume
across the chain that Terra supports.
So definitely means that Stacks is in a stronger position.
And finally, StackingDAO has attracted 1 million STX
the last cycle, which I think is something not been derated given like
the market sentiment and yeah the fact that people still deposit a ton of stx to earn yield
this is a great thing and i think utaic also showed for like stacking down also showed that basically
it's stacked it stacks back to the top 100 tokens because like it handled quite well this market let's say
downturn recently which i think is uh pretty cool to see you know like stocks ecosystem doing
doing this thing and that's it yeah covered a bit everything that was in the what's happening
on stocks yeah yeah definitely think that's a a good point to highlight and to really touch on as well.
Of course, the markets have been quite brutal,
a big deleveraging in BTC kind of affecting everything.
But what's also interesting about these kind of deleveraging moments
in the markets is that this is when ecosystems
can really distinguish themselves or show relative strength.
So we clearly saw that with STX, which I think it slid down to around number 140 on the CoinGecko
list. And just by not being down a lot, like single digit percentages, like 4% or 5% or something in those days,
and other tokens being down like 30%, 40%,
you get basically a relative repricing of SDX
being now around token 100.
And yeah, that reminds me a lot,
we saw that movie once before in right, in 2023 specifically, right?
The year started, also Stacks was like, you know, way down,
like not in the top 100, but like, you know, 130 or whatever.
And, you know, then it slowly crept up and then Ordinals came
and then the relative strength, like, shoo, pulled it all the way to like 50 or 40.
And then it settled there without being up a lot in dollar terms.
But just because everything is kind of down and so suppressed, it's like that's the way
to get ahead, right?
And then when the liquidity returns, then you're in a better position to capture that.
So that's why it's an interesting time.
It's an interesting time to build.
It's an interesting time to be in position, to get in position.
And then essentially build forward from there.
And yeah, that's like certain things we're also kind of seeing now in the Stacks ecosystem, with Stacks ecosystem tokens.
I mean, we talked here last week about how the NEO token is now the leading
project token on Stacks, so really kind of distinguishing itself there as the mascot
of the chain. A lot of new DeFi protocols or upgrades coming out with Zestv2, which
is already on Mainnet. Hermetica's HPTC, BitFlows, Concentrated Liquidity,
HODLMM, Alex's D, AMM,
and probably I forget something there.
But yeah, these are all really good developments
that we're working on despite the market conditions.
So yeah, I think that's important to mention. that we're working on despite the market conditions.
So yeah, I think that's important to mention.
I think the Fireblocks thing is also a big win.
Also something that's not really possible to get unless you're in this kind of a market.
So very exciting stuff there.
But yeah, Tim, this is up here anything you wanna you wanna
add or anything that you're you're thinking about for for this week oh hey tycho hey the advice of
gem everyone i am going to go over some hermetical updates and just to add to what he said earlier i
think this year is really shaping up to be a bullish year for stacks.
I'm looking forward to Zest V2 going live and some other integrations are on the way.
And for us, we are bringing HBTC to the stack.
The HBTC is already...
We are done with our alpha and we are moving straight to production.
All the major boxes are ticked if you are not on the wait list and you want assets at launch
do you want to join the wait list at hermetica.fi forward slash hbtc and some usdh updates earlier
this week earlier last week uh no sorry sometime last week we had to migrate our
pools to the new uscx and that is done so swaps are now live again if you couldn't swap before
you can now swap usc on ethereum or uscx on stacks to useh i think that's all for my end thanks psycho
on my end. Thanks, Saiko.
Yeah, awesome. It's a very good update and looking forward to using that too and bringing it to life.
I mean, also one thing that we should touch on from last week, which is more in the, call it the unfortunate category, was the exploit that occurred on the VALAR BurpDex.
Had nothing to do with the Clarity Smart Contract bug.
It's important for everyone to know.
It was purely an Oracle updating staleness problem.
Still led to a loss of funds, I believe, for the Stacks endowment.
But yeah, essentially what happened there is that the Oracle price was not sort of configured to update properly
by the folks involved in VALAR, which meant that people could open longs or shorts on Bitcoin
with kind of their own prices, their own choosing to some extent.
And yeah, that's obviously not good
because then you could open long or short at a price that's not real.
And yeah, that can lead to a loss of funds.
So it's unfortunate to see,
though, you know,
Valar is not like the main project
in stacks currently.
Of course, you know,
the token was quite big
around two years ago.
But yeah, it is what it is.
But I think it's important
to touch on that too.
So, you know,
clarity still stands strong,
but yeah, it's important
to really configure these oracles correctly.
And yeah, have a really committed team that does that.
I think on the Valar side, they were a bit in maintenance mode slash waiting mode.
Hadn't really seen much from the team for some time.
and then these things become more likely, unfortunately. But yeah, I think that's an important
And then these things become more likely, unfortunately.
piece to note. But yeah, I guess the advisor, any other news items or anything that you think is
maybe interesting or important to mention from the stack side?
from the stock side?
I think, I mean, from the stock side,
something that I've noticed,
I mean, if you're forward with the stock psychology,
you probably also noticed that one,
but this kind of 2026, let's say,
big ideas for ads lately on stocks,
which I think is super interesting.
For example, one of, like, we keep,
the latest one was about self-custodial for example uh
private self-custodial movements but also like it was one about self-custodial ptc staking and
basically all the big ideas are stacks is working on and i just feel like maybe it's
i feel like 2026 is just gonna be a big year for stocks like there's a
big road map there's a lot of launches coming all together and there's also like a clear idea of
where stocks is headed to gain a sim more adoption so yeah nothing that i say immediate just more
about the the concept that i'm pretty optimistic about what stocks can do.
And also like even Rick, if you go check Rick's latest article,
30 reasons why to be bullish on stocks. Again, there's a bunch of reasons of why stocks can become quite big.
So just wanted to highlight that.
highlight that.
Yeah, I think
important stuff to mention.
I think we're going to see
some big updates on the staking side
from the Stacks team.
So definitely very
curious to
see that.
And yeah,
also yesterday we saw a pretty good buy from strategy. So
the Bitcoin accumulation train continues on that front. So yeah, that's definitely always
good to see. And yeah, then other than that, from the market's perspective,
I guess it's the time to be heads down building more than anything else.
But yeah, you want to be in position for the tide changes.
for the tide changes.
But yeah, I guess with that in mind,
is there any other topics you wanted to cover
or anything else that you had in mind,
the advisor or Tim?
No, not really.
Nothing specific.
Great, great, great.
I think then we've kind of given a very comprehensive update on what's happened this week. And, you know, so don't want to drag things out
for too long, if that's not entirely necessary, because then, yeah, my Cloud Code setup is
looking at me and wants me to get back, you know, to all my agents. So,, it's been good to catch up. We'll be back next week,
then with 99 of the Stax DeFi Show. And yeah, we just keep them rolling in, keep the updates
coming. And yeah, we're still with our finger on the button to open up CS Protocol v2 for
with our finger on the button to open up ZES Protocol v2 for the public
to spending a final liquidity deployment from the stack side.
But if you want to have access already, then make sure to go to the pinned tweet
all the way to the left and request early access by following the steps
and then we'll get you in and then you can borrow
USDC at 0.3% while earning 3.5% on your Bitcoin or 8% on your stacks. So basically getting paid
3% to 8% to borrow which is think, a great proposition, I think.
So, yeah, but without further ado, maybe a couple of quick outros.
Maybe, you know, where can people find you?
What should they check out if they want to be part of HPTC or Stacking Down?
Maybe, Tim, you want to start, then the advisor can go,
and then I can finish round it off yeah sure
uh uh we are going to be rolling out product updates majorly to those on our wet list so
if you've not subscribed already do well to subscribe at
and have a good day everyone thanks for joining bye
so regarding stacking down I will cover so zest as usual but we're gonna stacking down zest if you want to not stay up to date with the latest on the development of the protocols and you know like the latest news i would say
and definitely make sure to follow stack united s on twitter instead if you want to
connect a bit more with the stacks community you know like having fun activities then make
sure to join stack united s discord channels where gpsc is running all these fun activities
and it's a perfect opportunity you know to meet new people and that fun all together.
That's it.
Yeah, amazing. Make sure to check out AsS protocol.
Check one of the pin tweets up here and see all the exciting yields and borrowing opportunities.
all the exciting yields and borrowing opportunities.
And yeah, so make sure to follow the Stacks handle
or us here for continued updates.
And yeah, I appreciate everyone for joining us.
I see, you know, 3HANA, GPSC, IPeter, Chad,
ChadSDX.BTC, yeah, familiar faces and the cat, Chad chadstx.btc yeah
familiar faces and the cat
idcrypto.btc
so the Leo cats
of course the leading
NFT on stacks
so great to see that we should have
Roobs on here again to
give a bit of an update on what's going on
in the cat universe soon
but yeah until then,
set your reminders. We're going to
be back next week, 10 a.m. Eastern time,
same time, same day, just
one week later.
We'll have more updates
for you. Until then,
hang tight, and we'll chat soon.
Bye-bye, everyone.
Bye. bye bye everyone bye Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Host
stacks.btc
from
Stacks Staking
