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Kicking off Q2 with a 💥: Stacks Accelerator Launch, STX reaches new ATH, $1bn TVL in Stacking

Hey Stacks Community,

Last week saw several big announcements for the Stacks ecosystem, including the launch of the Stacks Accelerator and news that Stackers reached over $1bn in TVL for Stacking. These announcements come after a strong start to Q2, with STX reaching a new ATH following the STX listing on Upbit's KRW market. As STX gain more traction, builders are shipping new products everyday and the global Stacks community continues to grow.

We at the Stacks Foundation are also gearing up for a productive quarter. We're looking forward to working with Trevor Owens, Managing General Partner of the Stacks Accelerator, to elevate Stacks founders, as well as testing and scaling both the Community Advocates and Stacks Chapters beta programs. As always, our priority is to support builders advancing the Stacks protocol, whether that is through the Stacks Accelerator, the Stacks Grants program, or community programs.

Below, we recap some of the most exciting ecosystem developments since the start of Q2. If there's anything you'd like to add to the next newsletter, please feel free to do so here.

Thanks!

Jenny Mith

Ecosystem Development Lead, Stacks Foundation

Ecosystem News

We're thrilled to announce the launch of the Stacks Accelerator, an intensive, three-month program aimed at supporting teams building on Bitcoin via the Stacks blockchain. The program is led by Trevor Owens (entrepreneur and author, whose startups have raised over $100M in venture funding) and backed by the Stacks Foundation, Hiro Systems, Daemon Technologies, and Freehold. The accelerator has raised an initial fund of $4M USD to support over 100 early-stage startup teams.

Stackers Lock Over $1bn Worth of STX in Latest Round of Stacking

STX have been listed on the Upbit KRW market, a top digital asset exchange in Korea. This news comes at an opportune time with the Stacks Korea chapter also launching this week.

Stacks token (STX), the cryptocurrency of the Stacks ecosystem, doubled in value in less than 24 hours after it became available to trade on South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, reflecting increased interest in alternative cryptocurrencies from retail traders in the East Asian country.

CoinShares CSO Meltem Demirors talks about joining the Stacks Foundation board and why Bitcoin is “not a f---ing rock” like gold.

When choosing Directors, Daemon prioritized individuals who already had skin in the game with the Stacks ecosystem, in addition to experience in running start ups and operating in the crypto space in Asia. The Board includes Trevor Owens, Melody He, and Wei Jiang.

OKEx customers will now be able to stack their STX via OKEx’s Earn interface and receive daily rewards in BTC. The estimated annualized rate of return for STX stacking is 10%.

OKCoin have added 3 new listing pairs: ETH/BTC, ETH/USDT, and STX/USDT.

STX Perpetual Futures Now Listed on FTX

Floating Point Group, a capital markets infrastructure firm focused on digital asset market opportunities, has launched a service for holders of Stacks tokens (STX), the native token of the Stacks blockchain, that allows institutions and over-the-counter trading desks to earn passive yield on their STX denominated in BTC.

Highlighted stories from around the Stacks Ecosystem. This blast was first shared to Blockfolio users via Signal - 'Watch' Stacks for key updates to your mobile device.

Stacks Community Updates & Developments

Review the latest Stacks Community Town Hall in which leaders from across the community discuss Clarity, the Stacks 2.0.11 upgrade, updates on Stacking and mining, NFTs on Bitcoin, and more.

Stacks Advocates Beta Program Launches

Daemon Technologies has launched a series of bounties that aim to make STX mining more accessible and profitable for the Stacks community. Earn up to 300,000 STX for participating in the challenge.

During the past few months, buidlers in the Stacks Ecosystem have been working on various businesses and ideas to further accelerate the adoption of the Stacks ecosystem. In this virtual meetup, we meet the creators of Arkadiko, PoX Lite, Ryder, and DAOos.

Stacks Korea Launches Community Stacking Pool

PlanBetter Team Offers New Stacking Pool Option for Community

Boomboxes are a new type of NFT built on Stacks. They allow people to delegate (“stack”) their STX and receive an NFT which acts as an automatic claim certificate on their portion of stacking rewards.

Stacks: Watch, Listen, Read

Winklevoss Capital portfolio member Stacks supports multiple projects aimed squarely at challenging centralized control by Big Tech. Boom is its decentralized wallet for creating and sending NFTs; Pravica is a decentralized communication platform that integrates email, chat and video into a single place; Sigle is a decentralized version of WordPress for making websites.

"The Stacks Foundation is enabling DeFi products on Bitcoin. Mitchell Cuevas, Head of Growth at the Stacks Foundation, is adamant that DeFi is not limited to Ethereum."

...to the extent that Bitcoin has longevity as a PoW system, its security can be leveraged to secure many other systems. The Stacks chain (also a USV investment) does exactly that through a novel mechanism known as proof of transfer (PoX). So if you can do a lot of decentralized things with a single PoW system, that may be worth incurring the electricity overhead.

Want a clear and easily understandable discussion on NFTs? Listen to Stacks founder and Hiro Systems CEO, Muneeb Ali discuss them.

Stacking is a super power for the Stacks Ecosystem. In just over two months, Stacking has paid out more than $8.5M in BTC via Stacking rewards. And while Stacking, at over 21%, is by far the highest Bitcoin APY we’ve been able to find, it’s about much more.