Despite Ethereum being the blockchain of choice for smart-contract capabilities, there has been a recent push to bring decentralized finance to the Bitcoin network.
Fast facts
- One such project looking to do so is layer-one protocol Stacks (STX), whose introduction of its programming language Clarity has allowed the development of smart contracts on the Bitcoin network. This allows for DeFi and non-fungible tokens to be encoded on the network in an efficient manner.
- STX saw its price soar 195% on July 11 after the introduction of smart-contracts on the Bitcoin network, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com. Following recent bullish movement attributed to Bitcoin, STX gained a further 10% on July 22.
- Stacks created and sold the first BTC minted NFT on July 10. Cara Delevingne’s “Mine” was sold for 18,000 STX, worth US$21,000 at the time.
- Payments company Square’s CEO and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey also recently announced the creation of a dedicated DeFi division within the company, with plans to build DeFi protocols on the Bitcoin network.
- “Square is creating a new business (joining Seller, Cash App, & Tidal) focused on building an open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services,” Dorsey tweeted.