Bitcoin Ecosystem’s Set To Keep Growing As New Developments Continue To Emerge 

With the crypto market continuing to grow rapidly over the past few years, Bitcoin has seen its mainstream clout increase quite rapidly, far beyond its position as just a store of value. This is because a growing number of developers have continued to build atop the digital asset's existing framework, thus allowing users to access its high level of decentralization, network security, and scalability with the touch of a button.

In this regard, it should be noted that via the use of certain third-party solutions it is possible to execute smart contracts, i.e. computer codes designed to automatically execute, control, or document events and actions according to the terms of a predefined contract, atop the Bitcoin network. 

To this point, even though for the longest time Ethereum had been considered to be the darling of the crypto developer community thanks to its better transaction throughput capacity and Turing completeness — which allowed complex applications to be built and executed atop it — recent development activities surrounding Bitcoin have made the flagship crypto extremely popular among app builders.

In fact, Bitcoin has made major strides when it comes to devs using the network to devise novel smart-contract based solutions while allowing them to access all of the benefits afforded by the project such as censorship resistance, access to amazing liquidity, high transparency, etc.

A closer look at Bitcoin's evolving technological framework  

Building on the Bitcoin blockchain has never been easier, thanks, in large part, to the use of various peripheral platforms that not only aim to improve the ecosystem's scalability but also its overall functionality. Stacks in one such solution, serving as an independent Layer-1 blockchain that is directly connected to the Bitcoin base layer, making use of a consensus mechanism referred to as proof-of-transfer (PoX).

To elaborate, the project depends on Bitcoin's secure, open and permissionless structure while allowing the latter to gain seamless access to a host of novel technological innovations including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and smart contracts. In essence, via the use of Stacks, it is possible to devise applications atop the Bitcoin network without making any changes to its base layer.

Lastly, each and every transaction processed via Stacks or one of its associated apps are settled via Bitcoin's native ledger, thus allowing for maximum security. 

Projects building on Stacks

As highlighted above, Stacks is being used by a number of applications to help expand Bitcoin's native use cases. Here are a few examples of the same:

Zest Protocol

In its most basic sense, Zest Protocol can be viewed as an on-chain Bitcoin capital market that allows liquidity providers the ability to accrue sustainable yields on their assets via the use of professionally managed lending pools. When it comes to institutional borrowers, Zest offers undercollateralized, on-chain Bitcoin financing without the constant fear of liquidation.

Lastly, technically speaking, Zest makes use of Clarity Smart Contracts on the Stacks network that are capable of triggering not only certain actions within the protocol but also competent when it comes to liquidating collateral/staked funds if a borrower defaults on their due payments. Lastly, Zest deploys Taproot-enabled Discrete Log Contracts (DLCs) which help ensure that the BTC contained in its native pools are guaranteed, transparent and trustable. 

Console 

Console is a crypto-native chat that is open-source based and has been designed specifically for Bitcoin (using Stacks) and Ethereum communities. The project is looking to assist Web3 communities to build, grow, and thrive over time, so much so that it comes with a chat platform designed specifically for decentralized organizations — making it quite similar to Discord but for the global Web3 economy. 

Arkadiko 

Arkadio is a Bitcoin-centric open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows owners of the flagship digital asset to gain seamless access to the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) market. To elaborate, it can be used for minting stablecoins (USDA) as well as earning returns on one's deposited and borrowed assets. As a result of its unique setup, users are able to gain increased liquidity in the form of a soft-pegged US Dollar stablecoin, while maintaining a high degree of exposure to the original asset.