august 24, 2023
Ready Layer 2 Pitch Competition: Winners & More
This past weekend, the Stacks Foundation hosted the first Ready Layer 2: Bitcoin Pitch Competition. This program was developed for individuals to learn about Bitcoin Layers like Stacks and explore opportunities to build on Bitcoin using sBTC. It was an educational, collaborative, and fun way to improve one’s skills and connect with like-minded people.
Why Layer 2?
There’s never been a better time to build on Bitcoin, and the growing demand for layer 2 technology provides the perfect opportunity for a surge in new ideas and solutions. Layer 2 solutions are the long-awaited next step for Bitcoin, potentially unlocking billions in latent capital. With strong efforts focused on layer 2 technology, the time is now for talented builders to introduce new or previously sidelined ideas for Bitcoin capabilities.
Why Layer 2?
There’s never been a better time to build on Bitcoin, and the growing demand for layer 2 technology provides the perfect opportunity for a surge in new ideas and solutions. Layer 2 solutions are the long-awaited next step for Bitcoin, potentially unlocking billions in latent capital. With strong efforts focused on layer 2 technology, the time is now for talented builders to introduce new or previously sidelined ideas for Bitcoin capabilities.
The event
Ready Layer 2 took place over the course of three days. Day 1 was about Learning, Day 2 was about Building their pitches, and Day 3 was time to submit their pitches. It was a fast-moving weekend that did not disappoint! This event was a huge success, with 363 registrants, 24 pitch submissions, and 3 final winners.
To make it all happen, an established crew of Mentors and brought in experts to lead Workshops on Idea Validation, Market Sizing, Crafting your Pitch, and sBTC! It was an action and education-packed weekend-long global event.
Aside from the Mentors and Workshop hosts, we also had established folks from the world of Bitcoin sit on a judging panel to evaluate each pitch submission. These amazing judges took the time to provide feedback, recommendations, and offered advice to these teams, shared via email post-event.
The criteria the Judges followed with their evaluations were centered on the overall Pitch, Validation, Market Sizing, and Proof of Concept. The Workshops offered at the start of the weekend were a huge help to the teams in preparation of their final pitches.
To make it all happen, an established crew of Mentors and brought in experts to lead Workshops on Idea Validation, Market Sizing, Crafting your Pitch, and sBTC! It was an action and education-packed weekend-long global event.
Aside from the Mentors and Workshop hosts, we also had established folks from the world of Bitcoin sit on a judging panel to evaluate each pitch submission. These amazing judges took the time to provide feedback, recommendations, and offered advice to these teams, shared via email post-event.
The criteria the Judges followed with their evaluations were centered on the overall Pitch, Validation, Market Sizing, and Proof of Concept. The Workshops offered at the start of the weekend were a huge help to the teams in preparation of their final pitches.
Prizes
A lot was up for grabs from the weekend. Due to our amazing sponsors and supportive ecosystem, we were able to offer the top 3 teams up to $8,500 in cash and crypto, $1,000 in value of digital collectibles, 1 on 1 sessions with private mentors post-event, automatic interviews with pre-accelerators like the BTC StartupLab, and an opportunity to present at Bitcoin Unleashed in London this coming October.
Winners
By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, 24 teams had submitted their pitches. The judges spent the rest of the day reviewing and evaluating what was submitted and lead us to the final results…
- 1st Place Winner: StacksBot - an onboarding and educational tool for the Stacks ecosystem. View the StacksBot pitch here
- Second Place Winner: BTX - trade perpetually, trade decentralized. View the BTX pitch here.
- Third Place Winner: Asigna - Creating a secure and non-custodial multisig wallet for Stacks. Learn more about Asigna here.
Supportive partners
Successful events like these wouldn’t be possible without a healthy and collaborative ecosystem. Supportive partners made these efforts truly come to life by providing their time, resources, and expertise to the greater cause of celebrating and onboarding more builders into the ecosystem. We owe the greatest thanks to Hiro, Xverse, and Alex. Learn more about each of these companies below:
Hiro
Developer Updates from Hiro, Straight to Your Inbox
Hiro builds developer tools that bring Web3 to Bitcoin. Their suite of tools unlocks the full potential of Bitcoin through smart contracts, digital assets, and decentralized applications.
They also regularly create educational resources so that you can better use Hiro tools, including Clarinet, the go-to tool for local smart contract development, and the Ordinals Explorer, a powerful interface to discover and search for new inscriptions.
Some of their recent resources include:
Xverse
Xverse is the leading Bitcoin wallet for Web3, providing first-class support for Ordinals, NFTs, DeFi and decentralized applications. With a beautifully designed, easy-to-use wallet available on iOS, Android and desktop as a Chrome browser extension, Xverse lets users securely manage Bitcoin on layer 1 as well as layer 2 networks like Stacks, and soon, the Lightning Network . Join us on X!
ALEX
ALEX is the largest Bitcoin DeFi protocol and the number 1 Dapp on Stacks. Utilizing Bitcoin for settlement and Stacks for smart contracts, ALEX enables you to launch, bridge, trade, and earn seamlessly.
At the heart of ALEX lies its dynamic DEX, encompassing both AMM and orderbook functionalities for Bitcoin L1 tokens as well as SIP10 standards. Follow along with ALEX on Twitter @ALEXLabBTC.
Hiro
Developer Updates from Hiro, Straight to Your Inbox
Hiro builds developer tools that bring Web3 to Bitcoin. Their suite of tools unlocks the full potential of Bitcoin through smart contracts, digital assets, and decentralized applications.
They also regularly create educational resources so that you can better use Hiro tools, including Clarinet, the go-to tool for local smart contract development, and the Ordinals Explorer, a powerful interface to discover and search for new inscriptions.
Some of their recent resources include:
- Their YouTube show Web3 on Bitcoin
- What are Bitcoin ordinals?
- Building on Bitcoin: a project comparison
Xverse
Xverse is the leading Bitcoin wallet for Web3, providing first-class support for Ordinals, NFTs, DeFi and decentralized applications. With a beautifully designed, easy-to-use wallet available on iOS, Android and desktop as a Chrome browser extension, Xverse lets users securely manage Bitcoin on layer 1 as well as layer 2 networks like Stacks, and soon, the Lightning Network . Join us on X!
ALEX
ALEX is the largest Bitcoin DeFi protocol and the number 1 Dapp on Stacks. Utilizing Bitcoin for settlement and Stacks for smart contracts, ALEX enables you to launch, bridge, trade, and earn seamlessly.
At the heart of ALEX lies its dynamic DEX, encompassing both AMM and orderbook functionalities for Bitcoin L1 tokens as well as SIP10 standards. Follow along with ALEX on Twitter @ALEXLabBTC.
What's next
A few days after the Pitch Competition concluded, several of the Judges, Mentors, and Sponsors from the event shared their experience, feedback, and advice for the participants during a Twitter Space. On top of this valuable feedback, there were also important updates and discussions related to sBTC and the highly anticipated Nakamoto release. You can listen here. The discussion around the Pitch Competition starts at the 24-minute mark.
If you’d like to join a future event, be sure to follow the Stacks Foundation on Twitter or subscribe to Stacks Snacks to stay in the know of all things Stacks. To keep up with updates related to sBTC, you can subscribe to the Bitcoin Writes newsletter here.
Last, please reach out to [email protected] if you have questions, suggestions, or would like to collaborate in any way. We look forward to hearing from you!
If you’d like to join a future event, be sure to follow the Stacks Foundation on Twitter or subscribe to Stacks Snacks to stay in the know of all things Stacks. To keep up with updates related to sBTC, you can subscribe to the Bitcoin Writes newsletter here.
Last, please reach out to [email protected] if you have questions, suggestions, or would like to collaborate in any way. We look forward to hearing from you!