During his talk at Consensus 2023 on Friday, Stacks CEO Muneeb Ali shared his insights on Bitcoin’s potential as a settlement layer and the revitalization of developer culture within the community. He suggested that a small, specific change to Bitcoin’s base layer could unleash a vast array of applications that can be built via layer 2 technology.
According to Ali, Bitcoin requires very little modification at its base layer to enable true ZK rollups, which are commonly used on Ethereum as a layer two scaling solution for batching transactions. He explained that it would only require the addition of two OP codes – either OP STARK verify or OP SNARK verify. This modification, Ali believes, could lead to more significant opportunities for the Bitcoin community.
However, the CEO does not expect this change to happen for another four to five years due to the slow pace at which Bitcoin’s base layer tends to evolve. Nevertheless, Ali is confident that more development can take place on Bitcoin, even without those changes, to catch up with more developer-friendly chains.
To bridge BTC from layer 1 to layer 2 chains in a relatively decentralized manner, Ali’s company, Stacks, has developed a protocol called sBTC. Stacks is a self-described Bitcoin layer “1.5”, and Ali believes that this sort of technology is what’s needed to kickstart Bitcoin DeFi.
“We need to make Bitcoin programmable in L2s, put that BTC in smart contracts, put them in the hands of developers, and then let them go wild,” Ali said during his talk.
Stacks’ STX token has seen a surge in popularity after Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs popularized in February. Stacks supports NFTs on its own chain, but Ordinals is a base layer technology.
In conclusion, Ali’s talk highlighted the potential of Bitcoin’s settlement layer and the importance of developer culture within the community. With the development of protocols like sBTC, Bitcoin DeFi could soon be a reality, providing significant opportunities for developers to explore and innovate.
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