The Metaverse Podcast - Bitcoin Smart Contracts, with Muneeb Ali of Stacks
Primer: Muneeb Ali, the Co-Founder of Stacks, returns to the Metaverse Podcast for a second time. Stacks is an open-source network of decentralized apps and smart contracts built on Bitcoin. In this episode, he shares with host Jamie Burke the updates that the protocol has undergone and their plans for the future.
Background
Muneeb is the founder of Stacks (formerly Blockstack)
Stacks enables smart contracts on Bitcoin
This is Muneeb’s second time on the Metaverse Podcast
Differences Between Stacks And Hiro System
Stacks is a decentralized open source project
Have ~50 independent entities working in the system
Hiro System is a dev tooling system
Why Does He Want To Bring Smart Contracts To Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is winning the sound money, inflation hedge category
Currently, Bitcoin’s market cap is around a trillion
In the future, it will be worth multiple trillions
People would want to deploy that capital instead of letting it sit passively
“It's [Bitcoin] not going to remain a passive store of value, which right now, it is largely a passive store of value. Even if you're a public company, you might have Bitcoin on your balance sheet, but you aren't really doing anything about that Bitcoin. It’s just kind of like sitting there.”
- Muneeb Ali
Ethereum and other smart contract platforms are enabling productive capital
The Ethereum community realized that to be successful over decades, blockchains have to eventually become money
Vitalik recently wrote a blog post detailing the last 5 years of Ethereum. In it, Vitalik ponders whether Ethereum should be more simple or more complex and experimental
Their approach is to let Bitcoin remain simple and as money while they bring smart contract functionality to it
Wrapping Bitcoin and issuing it on Ethereum introduces a central point of failure
“What happens when 10% of Bitcoin needs to be wrapped? At some point like there's just too much capital that is sitting at a single custodial entity for it to be practical in DeFi right?”
- Muneeb Ali
Response From The Bitcoin Community
Have been part of the Bitcoin community since 2013
Between 2013 and 2016, the Bitcoin community was a lot more open to new things being built on Bitcoin
Examples of things built on Bitcoin pre-2017:
Omni Protocol — stablecoin/Tether issuance
Counterparty — NFTs on Bitcoin (e.g. Rare Pepe)
In 2017, the Bitcoin community split over various Bitcoin forks and the threat of Ethereum that has just emerged
“The reaction it was almost like a defense mechanism that the Bitcoin community had was a little bit like look, don't change Bitcoin, we don't want any changes to the base layer because just being money is enough. And at the same time, all these other use cases they're kind of stupid, right?”
- Muneeb Ali
Bitcoin is an open network. Anyone can come in to develop on top of it
A lot of the Bitcoin OGs are open to building on Bitcoin and enhancing the network in layers
He has to educate both the Bitcoin community and those that are outside it
How Does He Cut Through All The Noise?
The average Bitcoin owner owns Bitcoin and other assets
As the Bitcoin community grows, the voice of the maxi population gets diluted down
Some Bitcoin maxis hold other assets but they do not admit it publicly since they have already painted themselves in a corner
Lightning Network And Stacks
Lightning is a complementary technology
Lightning enables off-chain payment that settles on Bitcoin
Stacks is a separate programming layer with its own ledger. A separate ledger is required to build smart contracts
Each transaction on Stacks automatically settles on Bitcoin
Users can do a normal Bitcoin transaction that interacts with the smart contracts running on Stacks
Zest, a Bitcoin lending application, is coming online soon. This provides an alternative to centralized parties like BlockFi
Lightning swaps to Stacks are already live
Because of their work, users can just open up their Cash App or Robinhood app and purchase an NFT using a stablecoin
How Is Stacks Perceived By High Profile Individuals Such As Jack Dorsey?
Doesn’t know about Dorsey’s personal views
Thinks that it lies on a spectrum
There are some Bitcoiners who do not know that Stacks exists
Their Reach
Their team have a heavy engineering focus
He’s trying to have a public profile and to get better at simplifying concepts
Historically, their team did not do as good a job on the marketing and project awareness front
Got Aubrey Strobel to join them recently
Need to level up on their comms and marketing
Things Being Built At Stacks Conferences
The growth is organic. They did not hand out money to incentivize people to build
The programming language they invented is called Clarity
Clarity has attracted engineers to take a deep dive into the language
Roadmap For The Next 12-18 Months
Various entities with fresh capital have entered the ecosystem
These entities have raised between $500k to $10 million organically without any incentivization
Excited about Hyperchains — Solana-like speed in the Bitcoin ecosystem
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