OCTOBER 19, 2021
Inside Clarity Universe Vol 3:
Seasons of the Bitcoin Metaverse
by Caitlin Eckvahl on October 19, 2021
In Volume 2 of Inside Clarity Universe, Clarity Campers visited the sunny paradise of Miami to learn about the ins and outs of the very first CityCoin on Stacks, MiamiCoin. We have come to the realization that the end of summer is upon us and autumn is on the horizon, but before we truly let summer go, we had to have a Stacking pool party with Friedger. He did a deep dive on various aspects of delegation and pool construction. The party didn’t end there though, students later ventured into the metaverse with MoonRay, and continued to hone their Clarity skills with another trip to the stacks.js library.
Stacking Pool Party
In the last iteration of Inside Clarity Universe, students learned about Stacking, the process in which STX holders put up STX and earn BTC rewards. This week, guest speaker, Friedger Müffke, a longtime Stacks contributor and an early pool founder, took this a step further and dug into delegated Stacking via Stacking pools. Stacking pools allow individual Stackers to pool their STX together as a community in order to collectively earn rewards.

Much like a lifeguard, a pool admin oversees the Stacking pool and performs Stacking on behalf of the community. Pool admins also set the rules for entering the pool such as the Stacking minimum to participate.

Stacking pools also help solve one major problem for Stackers. As an individual stacker, the minimum requirement to Stack is around 100,000 STX (this fluctuates based on the network). In a pool, individual Stackers can avoid this minimum and still earn rewards. In the case of Fridger’s pool, it is free to swim (meaning no fees) but it has a 40 STX Stacking minimum, which is a generous minimum compared to 100,000 STX.

By getting a full lay of the land with Friedger, students can now see that Stacking can have multiple use cases and is often more fun with a Friedger or a friend.


Next Stop, The Moon
Inside look into Moonray gameplay. The fluid deformation around the character is essentially a visual skin that will be offered as a NFT. Credit: Moonray
In the Stacks ecosystem, Moonray is one of the very first use cases of Clarity and Stacks in the metaverse. Moonray is a single-player PC game, soon to be multiplayer game that takes place in a surreal sci-fi world filled with liquid and dynamic landscapes. Rodrigo Etcheto, the founder and creator of Moonray illuminated students with the potential that gaming and blockchain have when combined together.

Rodrigo introduced the concept of NFTs in gameplay to students which can take the form of virtual collectibles, new weapons, skins, avatar outfits, or even dynamic landscapes that change over time. NFTs have been widely discussed in the news as a new way for creators to create digital art paired with crypto properties, but Bitcoin NFTs are a budding phenomenon. For context, Ethereum has made it very easy for people to create NFTs because of its native smart contract functionalities. What makes NFTs on Stacks special is the ability to run a smart contract that settles transactions on the Bitcoin network - this is where Clarity comes in.
Exclusive mockup of dynamic character skins that may be future NFTs, provided by the Moonray team.
As Moonray continues to develop and explore a play-to-earn model, Rodrigo discussed the potential behind creating a “financial district” within the game where players can buy and sell digital assets that they own and have real value. Clarity students have a huge opportunity here to shape the digital marketplace of the metaverse and create a gaming economy around Bitcoin.
The Floor is JavaScript
After a quick trip to another dimension, students came back down to Earth to hit the books with Instructors Tina and Marvin. This week Tina and Marvin tag teamed to discuss the different tools and resources that students can use to help efficiently assemble their Clarity-powered applications and connect with JavaScript. Considering how popular Javascript is, it was important to show students how they can apply Clarity smart contracts to some of the applications we use today. If you recall in Volume 1 of Inside Clarity Universe, Boombox’s Dan Trevino found this to be pretty handy!
Since the Clarity Camp program was designed to be interactive, students worked with Marvin and Tina to test out some of the most useful functions within Stacks.js. To start, Stacks.js was created to give every developer access to the Stacks tech stack. Marvin and Tina noted that students will be able to easily integrate key management, Stacking, and Stacks-compatible wallets into their applications.

By combining the Stacks’ tech stack with Clarity smart contracts, Clarity students are able to build powerful applications that use Bitcoin to its fullest potential.

In the next session of Clarity Universe, students take a deep dive into Bitcoin DeFi with two more successful graduates of the Stacks Accelerator.

Caitlin is the Communications Lead at the Stacks Foundation where she provides PR and communications support to Stacks builders. Previously, she worked as a communications consultant at Wachsman where she worked with prominent crypto and blockchain companies including Stacks, Rally.io, Rarible, Qredo, Value Technology Foundation, Status.IM, Binance Charity, and others.