​​Blockstack (STX) Overview

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​High level talking Points

​​​✅​ Stacks 2.0 Mainnet upcoming on or before December 15
  • ​​Stacks extend the functionality of bitcoin, you can earn bitcoin through stacking stx.
​​​✅​ Deep dive about the project
  • ​​Apps and Smart Contracts on Bitcoin
  • ​​400+apps plus 2 million+Ids/users in the $STX
  • ​​First SEC-qualified token offering
  • ​​Backed by A+ Investors i.e. Winkelvoss,  USV, and more…
  • ​​Partnership with Algorand, Chainlink, etc.
​​​✅​ Stacks 2.0
  • ​​Stacking - earn btc by stacking (staking) STX
  • ​​Setting the stage for DeFiOnBTC
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​Overview

​​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.
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​​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. 
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​​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.
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​​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.
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​History

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​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.
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​​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. 
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​​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.
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​Regulation

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​​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.
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​​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.
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​Patents

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​PoX (Proof of Transfer)

​​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.
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​​There are two types of participation in PoX: STX Mining and Stacking.
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  • ​​​🔨​ STX Mining 
  • ​​STX Mining is how new STX tokens are minted, and how the Stacks chain and network makes progress. Anyone can STX Mine, and STX Miners spend Bitcoin for the chance to earn STX tokens and create a new Stacks block.
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  • ​​​🪙​ Stacking (Earn BTC when Staking STX)
  • ​​Stacking is an innovative mechanism that rewards STX token holders for participating in the consensus process. STX holders who participate in Stacking are called Stackers. Every time a new block is mined on the Stacks chain, the protocol sends the BTC committed by miners to Stackers as a reward for adding value to the network. All eligible Stackers are rewarded with BTC approximately once every 7 days. This 7-day reward period is one “Stacking cycle”.
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​When is the most anticipated Stacks 2.0 Mainnet?

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​​With Phase 3 (Krypton) going live earlier this week, 90% of the implementation outlined in the whitepapers has been implemented. We won’t rush something out just to hit a date, but rest assured everyone is working extremely hard to make it happen soon. The best engineering estimate is as follows:
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​​a) Stacks 2.0 will certainly not launch before Oct 31st (Xenon will not finish by then).
​​b) Stacks 2.0 mainnet readiness will likely not go beyond Dec 15th 2020.
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​​This gives an estimated range of 6 weeks (Nov 1st to Dec 15th). Mainnet readiness means that there is a release that can be deployed by miners and it passes all checks. Miners will decide the exact launch date.

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​Prominent PRs

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​STX Token

​​The fundamental use case of the Stacks token (STX) on the chain is to facilitate fees for the registration of digital assets like user or domain names. STX tokens used to register new digital assets are "consumed" or burned in the process. After Stacks 2.0, STX can be use as "fuel" for Clarity smart contracts and to pay to miners for hosting Blockstack nodes and securing the network
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​Supply Details
​​Once native mining starts, approximately 4383 blocks will be processed per month (52,596 blocks per year). Min mint will be equal to 500 tokens per block for the first 262,980 blocks (approximately 5 years), 400 tokens per block for the next 262,980 blocks (approximately five years), and then 300 tokens per block for all years thereafter. Max mint will be equal to 3,000 tokens per block for the first 262,980 blocks (approximately 5 years), 2,000 tokens per block for the next 262,980 blocks (approximately five years), and then 1,000 tokens per block for all years thereafter. As such the maximum potential issuance will reduce over the years. The Stacks Token Economics Whitepaper v 2.0 provides in-depth details on the mechanism. 
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​Partnerships

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​Algorand
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​Chainlink
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​Arweave
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​Blockdaemon
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​Firechat
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​Blockchain.com
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