Blockstack is a software for a user-owned internet on which people own their creations and connections. Over 400 Blockstack apps give users direct ownership of their internet assets while protecting their privacy. The Stacks 2.0 blockchain will anchor Web 3.0 in Bitcoin, the world’s most secure blockchain.
Blockstack is now headquartered in New York City with a globally distributed team that includes computer scientists from Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and other top universities.
As of November 2019, Blockstack PBC has raised over $75 million from equity investments and token offerings-- about $23.0 million from two token offerings in 2019, $47.5 million from a token offering in 2017, and $5.1 million in equity investments. Investors in Blockstack include USV, Lux Capital, Zhen Fund, HashKey, Recruit Holding, SNZ, Digital Currency Group, Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, Winklevoss Capital, and over 4,500 other entities and individuals.
As of Oct. 2020, there are more than 400 applications built on the platform with contributions from more than 100 independent developer teams. The Stacks network is still in v1, with v2 expected to launch sometime in 2020. The v2 release will introduce functionality for Blockstack's native smart contract language, called Clarity, which are powered and secured by BTC.
History
Blockstack's Ivy League origins
Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea founded Blockstack in 2013 at the Princeton Computer Science department to solve the underlying problems of current web and mobile apps. Muneeb’s Ph.D. thesis was on Blockstack. The two led their new startup through the Y Combinator accelerator in the summer of 2014, and upon completion, raised a seed round led by Union Square Ventures(USV), with participation from Naval Ravikant, SV Angel, and others.
After launching a blockchain-based decentralized identity(DID) system in 2014, the team released the initial design for the Blockstack platform in 2015. They began R&D on its peer-to-peer communication and data storage system. The R&D phase lasted through 2017 and concluded with Blockstack releasing an alpha version of its developer platform, which included a developer release of the Blockstack Browser and a decentralized storage system.
By the end of 2017, the company also secured two additional funding rounds via a Series A, led by USV, with participation from Lux Capital, Digital Currency Group, and others, as well as a token offering through the Reg D framework.
In July 2019, Blockstack received the green light from the SEC to conduct a token sale in the U.S under Regulation A+, the first such token offering of its kind. The company originally filed for the Reg A offering in April 2019 and had previously been in a"testing the waters" phase that allowed them to market the offering prior to qualification.
According to the official SEC filing, the offering allowed Blockstack to raise up to $28 million from both accredited and non-accredited investors while a concurrent Reg S could raise an additional $10 million from non-U.S. investors. The proceeding two-month dual sales netted Blockstack a total of $23 million.
Proof of Transfer is a consensus mechanism design that uses Bitcoin’s Proof of Work(PoW) to launch new blockchains that are anchored in Bitcoin’s security. Further, PoX can give incentives to participants in such new blockchains in the form of earning Bitcoin. Such Bitcoin rewards were not possible before PoX. These rewards can potentially be used for use cases like consensus participation, ecosystem developer funds, incentives for specific players, etc.
There are two types of participation in PoX: STX Mining and Stacking.
High level talking Points
Overview
History
Regulation
Patents
PoX (Proof of Transfer)