Event Recap: Bitcoin Unleashed, Builders Edition
by Claire Topalian on October 20, 2022
On October 7th, Stacks Foundation hosted Bitcoin Unleashed: Builders Edition, a virtual event bringing together founders and developers to discuss all things building on Bitcoin. Attendees learned form industry leaders, built alongside the best developers in the space, and connected with fellow Bitcoiners form across the globe. All in, over 1,100 attendees tuned in between Hopin and YouTube.

Below are a few highlighted discussions, and you can view all content from the event via this playlist.

Featured Discussion: How Stacks 2.1 Will Strengthen Stacks’ Connection to Bitcoin

In the unending quest for utility, investors are looking for the best ways to put their bitcoin to work. A bevy of new upgrades, from Subnets to Continuous Stacking, brings richer functionality to the world's oldest cryptocurrency. Hear from Muneeb and Brittany on what's coming, with Aubrey guiding the conversation.

  • Gina Abrams, Chief of Staff, Trust Machines
  • Muneeb Ali, CEO, Trust Machines
  • Brittany Laughlin, Executive Director, Stacks Foundation

Check out the full video here.
  • Brittany Laughlin

    "Stacks 2.1 is a really exciting upgrade, especially for builders. It focuses on building better connections into Bitcoin. That includes things like better writing in with Taproot, better bridges, more functionality, better UX for any people who are holding Stacks or building with Stacks. One of the things we've heard a lot of Stacks holders excited about is continuous stacking. So if you're already a Stacker, you're already earning maybe a 9% annual yield in Bitcoin for locking in your Stacks, but you often have these cool down periods where you kind of have to wait a cycle, you miss those rewards. So with continuous stacking, this will be a better experience and also just mean more APY for your Bitcoin."

  • Muneeb Ali

    "A lot of people are looking at the network performance and how many transactions are happening and what are the scalability of things. 2.1 helps with that as well in the sense that there's new Clarity features that are going live, people can write more optimized smart contracts that can actually package more information in existing blocks. You've seen some improvements to how much transactions are getting packed on existing blocks, even with the recent upgrades that happened, and 2.1 also helps there. It's not like everyone's waiting for subnets or the next major improvement that happens. A lot of stuff can be done even before that and 2.1 is going to help move the needle along these dimensions."

Featured Discussion:

How Marketplaces Will Help NFTs Evolve

As the NFT markets evolve, so do their marketplaces. From basic buying and selling to more sophisticated financial instruments, NFT platforms now offer a plethora of fresh features. This session explores new frontiers in making NFTs more than just digital collectibles.

  • Brian Laughlan, Founder, Satoshibles
  • Jessica Greenwalt, Co-Founder, Creative Director, Unum, Vayner3
  • Mark McKenzie, Founder, Megapont
  • Jamil Dhanani, Founder, Gamma.io
  • Louise Ivan, Co-Founder, Ryder

Check out the full video here.
  • Brian Laughlin

    "Your core community really becomes kind of solidified in a bear market, I would say. I've found a lot of high level great conversations with my community basically saying, 'We're still here and we're really excited about the future and everything.' So that's really encouraging for us because it is tough to work when the kind of hype is gone and you think, "Oh no, we've got to make it out with us." So yeah, you just stick with it, stick with your community and keep going, keep building."

  • Jessica Greenwalt
    "Tying the digital collectibles to real world physical products or things that brands are doing that people already love them for, there's no shortage of excitement and delight around those products. So tying this new technology to their existing products and giving fans another way to engage with those products, that's super exciting for consumers and for the brands themselves, and it gives people an onboarding, easy onboarding into interacting with this technology without even realizing it."
  • Louise Ivan

    "We're in a cycle where we take out the speculative premium of the NFTs and attach it to what we call an establish full floor value. And that established floor value will come on a Web3 brand. When I think about digital collectibles, it's all about changing the relationship between consumer and the product owners.

    So now you can actually build the subsequent experiences in order to build a brand for us and brand value on what you're creating."

Builders Edition Clarity Hackathon

If you're a builder and are interested in working with Clarity, join us in the current Builders Edition Clarity Hackathon. The deadline is end of day on Sunday, October 23rd.

Learn more here.