Stacks Is Giving Back to Bitcoin, Now and Later
by Mitchell Cuevas on December 17, 2021
It’s been an incredible year for Bitcoin, in part, thanks to builders in the Stacks Ecosystem. It’s hard to believe that this time last year, Stacks 2.0 and the Clarity Smart contract language weren’t even live yet. Now, we see a new project go live on Bitcoin via Stacks seemingly multiple times a week.
Arkadiko and Stackswap have brought Bitcoiners the gift of DeFi, Bitcoin Birds, Megaponts, Crashpunks, and countless more headline a thriving Bitcoin NFT community, and projects like Moonray are leading us into the Bitcoin Metaverse.

While all this building is certainly a natural way of giving back to Bitcoin as it makes Bitcoin more valuable, the Stacks Ecosystem, which never ceases to amaze me with its generosity, still wanted to do more. At the Stacks Foundation, we’ve received numerous inquiries from partners and community members asking how they can give back to Bitcoin development.

We wanted to answer that call and make ‘giving back to Bitcoin’ easy during this festive, giving time of year and share some plans we have to make it ongoing as well.
Bitcoin ❤️, Now and Later
Now
We’re making giving back to Bitcoin this holiday season as easy as Stacking for Cycle #25. We’re again working with our friends at Brink to make sure your generosity reaches the highest impact places in the Bitcoin ecosystem and goes to fund talented people contributing to Bitcoin Core.

You can read more about the support we already provide them and the wonderful programs they run here.
Next week, we’ll release the step by step on how to participate and share addresses and explorer links for transparency. If you’d like a reminder, please enter your email below. If you’re already Stacked up for Cycle 25, no worries, you will also be able to send BTC directly if you’d like!
Send me the instructions on how to support Bitcoin
.22 for 2022
We’re thankful to Okcoin, Daemon Technologies, and Hiro PBC, who have already pledged to delegate Stacks to this very special pool or to donate Bitcoin directly. At the Stacks Foundation, we’ll be Stacking 1M STX to kick things off. The recommended donation for organizations is .22 BTC or ~$10,000 USD.

Whitelisted for…
Anyone that supports Bitcoin by sharing Stacking rewards or BTC directly during Cycle 25 will earn a commemorative NFT which puts you on the whitelist for a special Bitcoin NFT effort happening next year…read on.
Later
₿NFT
The holiday effort to support Bitcoin is just the beginning of plans for Stacks ❤️ Bitcoin in 2022. Since this very topic came up in a great Twitter conversation this week, we’re going to go ahead and give you a peak into our plans for next year and invite you to get involved early.

Drumroll…we’ve begun collaborating with stxnft.com and Fungible Systems to create a very special, very unique Bitcoin-powered NFT. We’re vetting world-class artists (suggestions?!) to create a series that will recognize those who provably support Bitcoin. We welcome anyone that would like to support this, we already have some great partners on board and welcome more.

The plan for the effort looks very much like this timely tweet from Eric Wall:
Further, we plan to incorporate a direct aspect of Bitcoin state into possible generative aspects of the NFT. Through the Clarity smart contract language, we have visibility into Bitcoin state and will be coming up with a clever and fun way to incorporate that into the art itself.

We likely plan to include Stacking in some capacity as well, i.e. as a reward for Stacking to a pool that supports Bitcoin, your base NFT gains extra powers and status. Before launch, we’ll have the broader community and partners discuss and vote on precisely how it should all work and where exactly funds should go. If you’re an organization doing good work for Bitcoin or would like to join the NFT project team, please get in touch.

And yes, you’ll be able to buy the NFTs with Bitcoin ;).

Stacking for Causes:
In 2022, we’ll also be releasing a platform that leverages Stacking to make it easy to support important causes without having to give up your principle. We envision all kinds of engagement opportunities with NFTs, swag, exclusives, etc. for supporters.

Bitcoin and organizations moving Bitcoin forward will be among the first causes on the platform, but plans for this portal also include traditional charities and other community-nominated efforts.

For anyone that would like to be more involved, please reach out.

Happy Holidays
If you're celebrating a holiday soon, please relax and enjoy it. It's been a fantastic year working with all of you, and 2022 is going to be bigger, better, and have more...you guessed it, Bitcoin.


Mitchell Cuevas leads various partnership and growth marketing efforts at the Stacks Foundation. He's spent the last decade working in community-driven high-growth startups.