Summary
TLDR: Stacks, a Bitcoin layer 2 solution, is set for a major upgrade called “Nakamoto” on April 16, promising faster transactions, improved security, and better yield for users. The upgrade will also introduce sBTC, a trustless method of bridging BTC to Stacks blockchain. The future looks bright for Bitcoin developers with projects like BitVM showing promise in reducing trust assumptions for bridging BTC to other chains.
Key Points
1. Stacks ties itself to Bitcoin by storing a hashed copy of Stacks transaction blocks in Bitcoin’s ledger, rewarding stackers with direct payments in BTC and miners with freshly minted STX.
2. The upcoming “Nakamoto” upgrade for Stacks, set for April 16, is expected to significantly improve transaction speed, settling transactions within five to ten seconds, as well as enhance security by connecting Stacks forking behavior to Bitcoin directly.
3. Stacks is also working on introducing sBTC, a trust minimized method of bridging BTC to the Stacks blockchain, utilizing a threshold signature scheme and distributed key generation events to maintain decentralization and security.