Regardless of the (global) bear market, the Stacks ecosystem has remained focused on building and growing. Here’s the latest. 👇
TL;DR
- Arkadiko is upgrading and Stacks 2.1 could take it to the next level
- CityCoins has started implementing protocol and tokenomics improvements
- LNSwap, a cool tool to try submarine swaps, has launched its alpha
- The number of teams working on Stacks is skyrocketing 🚀
Arkadiko + Stacks 2.1 = next level Bitcoin DeFi
Arkadiko (DIKO), one of the first DeFi protocols built on Stacks, is an open source, non-custodial liquidity protocol for swapping tokens, minting stablecoins, earning interest on deposits, and borrowing assets on Stacks. In fact, users can do all of that in one fell swoop, by:
- Pledging existing STX as collateral to mint USDA stablecoins
- Swapping the minted USDA for more STX
- Locking /stacking both the pledged and new STX to earn more STX for three cycles at a time
- All while earning (and paying) interest on the USDA tokens
For those who don’t know, USDA is a tentative stablecoin, soft pegged to the dollar. The strategy above is not quite on full autopilot yet, but it’s moving in that direction and Stacks 2.1 should be a huge help. In the last few months, Arkadiko has done a great job in making the front-end more user-friendly and informative.
The pledging, minting, and stacking is all done in what Arkadiko calls a Vault – where users can monitor the health of the loan and add collateral. In the example below, the collateral for the loan is 232% and labeled healthy. Collateral can fall to 140% before liquidation/payoff of the USDA loan. Clicking “Manage” provides additional information about the loan, the ability to lock and unlock STX, and the ability to deposit additional collateral should the collateral-to-loan percentage get too low.
Stacking pledged STX is a great feature. At the moment, STX are locked for three cycles and then enter the dreaded two-week cooldown, during which they can be unlocked from stacking or even withdrawn.
With the soon-to-be-released Stacks 2.1 upgrade, however, two-week cool-down periods should be a thing of the past, allowing for continuous stacking! This could significantly increase the users’ earnings because there wouldn’t be a cycle of earnings lost every fourth cycle. 👀
CityCoins stacks improvements
Quick update on CityCoins. In the past month, the community has agreed on protocol improvements as well as on changes to the token emission schedules. The process is not over and there’ll be another vote in early October to further improve the tokenomics. These changes reflect the main lessons learned out of the launches of MiamiCoin and NYCCoin. 🫡
LNSwap: play around with submarine swaps
Here’s a fun and limited, alpha-stage tool. LNSwap is a non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange providing a new method to swap Bitcoin and Stacks against each other.
The idea of non-custodial swaps is that either the swap happens entirely and you get the exact amount of the asset indicated or users complete what is called a “refund.” This concept of all or nothing is called atomicity and is achieved thanks to so-called submarine swaps. LNSwap is a great way to start playing around with submarine swaps but remember it’s still early stages so handle with caution!
Number of devs goes up
BuiltOnBitcoin’s recent podcast with Stacks Foundation Executive Director Brittany Laughlin is full of insights into Stacks’ future. Topics include decentralization, transparency, and core development.
From a metrics perspective, Brittany shared that there were about 75 full-time teams building on Stacks as of the end of the second quarter. That number is higher now from the many teams that participated in the most recent Stacks Accelerator companies. She also shared that an internal goal is to get that number to 300 to be on par with other longer-existing protocols. 💪
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