Announcing New Critical Bounties from the Stacks Foundation
The Stacks Foundation is excited to announce the latest set of quarterly Critical Bounties, aimed at funding infrastructure development, tools, research, and other initiatives that drive Bitcoin layer development.
Critical Bounties are open to the community — anyone can apply for the chance to complete a Critical Bounty. The Stacks Foundation and experts from the ecosystem will review each application and choose the recipients for this quarter's Critical Bounties.
Critical Bounties are open to the community — anyone can apply for the chance to complete a Critical Bounty. The Stacks Foundation and experts from the ecosystem will review each application and choose the recipients for this quarter's Critical Bounties.
Critical Bounty Focus Areas (Q2 2024)
DevEx & Testing
Tooling and testing ideas that could significantly improve the quality of life for both Stacks Core Developers and Clarity Developers.
Network Participants
Tooling and enhancements aimed at boosting the experience for all network participants, including Miners, Stackers, and Signers.
Other Topics
A sampling of research, development, and integration ideas relevant to advancing Bitcoin layers, particularly Stacks.
Tooling and testing ideas that could significantly improve the quality of life for both Stacks Core Developers and Clarity Developers.
Network Participants
Tooling and enhancements aimed at boosting the experience for all network participants, including Miners, Stackers, and Signers.
Other Topics
A sampling of research, development, and integration ideas relevant to advancing Bitcoin layers, particularly Stacks.
Critical Bounty Impact
The previous cohort of Critical Bounties was a resounding success, with several notable achievements:
- sBTC Testing Team: This critical bounty provided support for testing and security-minded researchers and ultimately led to Nikos Baxevanis joining the Stacks Foundation as a Resident where he is currently focused on new and novel testing techniques benefitting both the Nakamoto and sBTC releases.
- Research into Liquid STX by Arkadiko and Whitelabel: This critical bounty kick-started research into the design of liquid stacked fungible tokens which subsequently served as the genesis for Stacking DAO and Papaya.
- sBTC Tooling and Research: This critical bounty helped support early R&D of the sBTC Bridge API / UI and led to Mike Cohen joining the Stacks Foundation as a Resident where is currently focus on building the Revealer API and tooling used for on-chain governance votes.
New Critical Bounties
This quarter, the Stacks Foundation has created a set of new critical bounties opportunities for developers. As the Nakamoto Activation comes closer, the Critical Bounties are focused heavily on safety and security.
Note: The listed Critical Bounties serve as a "conversation starter" in many ways; we don't expect teams to be limited to the suggestions we've laid out, but we hope that these important topics can serve to kickstart crucial work that's been identified by the community.
Key Dates for this Cohort’s Critical Bounties
- Applications Open: May 17th to June 7th
- Application Review: June 7th to June 17th
- Recipients Announced: June 21st
We invite developers, researchers, and enthusiasts from the Bitcoin and Stacks communities to apply and help build a stronger, more robust Bitcoin layer together.