- Bitcoin layer-2 Stacks will receive a highly anticipated upgrade on Wednesday, augmenting its transaction confirmation time.
- The DeFi ecosystem built on Bitcoin is set to receive a massive boost from Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade.
Stacks—a layer-2 Bitcoin network—will receive its latest upgrade, called Nakamoto, on Wednesday, August 28. With that, the Bitcoin community can witness high execution DeFi use cases unknown to the Bitcoin network.
That will occur due to the numerous capabilities this upgrade will unlock. The upgrade will bring massive scalability to Stacks. Thus far, the layer-2 could settle transactions between 10 to 30 minutes of their initiation. That is on par with the layer-1 Bitcoin network. After Nakamoto kicks in, settlement times on Stacks will drop by about 100x to seconds. The update will also introduce sBTC a few weeks later—Stacks’ version of wrapped Bitcoin. That will enable users to utilize Bitcoin in an array of DeFi applications natively deployed on the layer-2.
Interest in the Bitcoin DeFi Ecosystem Expected to Skyrocket Soon
As transaction times decrease rapidly, Stacks will allow the Bitcoin ecosystem to reach the capabilities of highly scalable networks like Solana. A growing interest in Bitcoin DeFi and other programmable dApps since the launch of Ordinals makes this the perfect time for a network like Stacks to exhibit its capabilities. User and developer interest in Bitcoin is higher than ever, with over 80 layer-2 Bitcoin networks launching after Ordinals made its way.
With a high-functioning layer-2 like Stacks, many developers will flock to the fertile Bitcoin DeFi scene, allowing users to reap the benefits of these developments. High transaction speeds at low costs will fuel a new wave of deployment and adoption on Bitcoin. The network is responsible for producing the most liquid cryptocurrency in the market, BTC, and driving it to global adoption. However, the acceptance of dApps on the network falls short of significant.
As that is set to take a shift, industry giants are taking notice. Investments from big names like Pantera, OKX, Polychain, Binance, and more into Bitcoin Layer-2 s show the growing consensus of Bitcoin’s potential smart contract-related dominance. Stacks could be the first derivative of the Bitcoin network to take it there.
