The Layer 2 protocol Stacks is gearing up to launch the Nakamoto upgrade in April 2024.
In Brief
Stacks confirmed that it will activate the pox-4 proof-of-transfer contract on select Bitcoin blocks between April 15 and 29.
Stacks is an open-source blockchain that serves as a Layer 2 solution for Bitcoin. Stacks Muneeb Ali, one of the co-founders of Stacks (STX), announced that the Nakamoto upgrade is set to begin between April 15 and 29. During this window, the new proof-of-transfer (PoX) consensus contract, known as pox-4, will be activated on designated Bitcoin (BTC) blocks.
This anticipated Nakamoto upgrade aims to significantly increase the speed of transactions while ensuring that every transaction attains complete Bitcoin finality, thus speeding up Layer 2 advancements. Bitcoin .
Currently, there are around $1.4 billion tied up in STX assets, which will be released, enabling users to keep earning BTC rewards throughout the process. It's expected that both institutional signers and the community will lock these assets within the new pox-4 contract.
Signers are preparing to register on the network and will test their configurations on the mainnet. In this period, while they'll be running the Nakamoto program, the actual consensus rules will be inactive. This step is crucial to onboarding signers onto the mainnet, even if they aren't validating Layer 2 blocks just yet.
After about two cycles of stacking, an Activation Window will occur, allowing the Nakamoto consensus rules to take effect at a specific Bitcoin block. Each stacking cycle lasts roughly two weeks, focusing on onboarding signers into the network, which includes both institutional and solo participants setting up and testing their operations on the mainnet.
As per the announcement, the launch agreements, fundamental consensus rules from Satoshi, block validation, Distributed Key Generation (DKG), StackerDB, and term extensions—including pox-4 and signer binaries—are ready and undergoing thorough testing.
Stacks is aiming to elevate the Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem significantly.
Stacks has been crafted to support smart contracts and decentralized applications, leveraging Bitcoin as a stable core. The blockchain successfully initiated its mainnet in 2021 and now comprises over 30 contributing organizations, including the non-profit Stacks Foundation, Hiro (dev tooling), Xverse, Trust Machines, Mechanism, Bitcoin L2 Labs, ALEX, and the Bitcoin Frontier Fund.
Recently, Stacks has integrated There are eight new players in the industry, including Blockdaemon, NEAR Foundation, DeSpread, Luxor, Chorus One, Kiln, Restake, and Alum Labs, joining its network. This inclusion allows them to engage more robustly in the broader validator ecosystem and contribute to the signing of new Stacks blocks.
With a forward-looking approach, Stacks is gearing up for the Nakamoto upgrade, aiming to further enrich the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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