The Why for Stacks: They are Learning

It feels great to get back in front of the keyboard after an unwanted, and unprecedented hiatus. This marks the longest period of time between blog entries since I began this endeavor nearly a year ago. Much has transpired since my last entry, so without delay lets get to it.

They Have Found Stacks

I would like to start this by acknowledging the absolute tenacity of the Stacks community. From builders to hodlers we have absolutely earned this win. While the bear market raged, and the talking heads yet again proclaimed the death of crypto, our community remained steadfast in its convictions. We went toe to toe with maxis, encouraged one another during the hardest times, and remained busy building the decentralized future we believe in. Hats off to you lads, and ladies. I knew that I was in the right place.

So what happened? Why did we see all of the increased user activity accompanied by a mind blowing series of green candles?

Bitcoin Ordinals

Ordinals definitely played a big part in this mass discovery of the Stacks ecosystem. The crypto punditry tends to give the lion’s share of the credit to ordinals, and they may be right. I am not going to go into great detail talking about ordinals, its basically all anyone has been talking about tbh. If by some chance you do want to read a bit about ordinals, I highly recommend you check out this piece by Trygg.btc.

Basically though, for the first time since its inception, retail (and maxi’s apparently) learned that Bitcoin could be used for more than currency. This is a pretty big deal, and while the ordinals cought me by surprise, knowing that Bitcoin could be used in such a way did not. I have oft said that Bitcoin is as big of a technological revolution as the printing press, and now people are really starting to get it.

So how does this lead to the mad rush to Stacks? I think I can shed some light on this.

Bitcoin is Boring

Or so I thought for the first couple of years in this space. I remember my first Bitcoin buys well. I could buy Bitcoin and hold it (smart, should have done that more tbh), or spend it on an exchange betting on a BTC based trading pair. This was all fine and good, until DeFi Summer that is.

During DeFi Summer, the part of crypto history that lives on in the Ape meme to this day, is when I really started to learn the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin was great at sitting in a wallet, but not for much else. Ethereum on the other hand had all of these applications and protocols being built upon it. Your ETH could do all sorts of things, and this was evidenced by the tremendous growth and innovation taking place on that blockchain. This is because Ethereum allows for the use of smart contracts.

Bitcoin is unbeatable as the hardest money ever created, but it is just not able to create smart contracts. Ordinals are awesome, but they are not NFTs, that is to say they are not smart contracts.

The only way that you can run smart contracts onto Bitcoin is by utilizing a smart contract layer.

Enter Stacks

In some of my older work, I had emphasized the eureka moment I experienced when I learned about Stacks. I am a Bitcoiner who understands the power of smart contracts, when I discovered Stacks I knew I had found a winner.

The same epiphany that I described above has just happened to many people who are paying attention to crypto at the moment. That is why Stacks price moved up so violently….the degens have arrived.

Granted not everyone who just had their lightbulb moment re Stacks is a degen, some are builders who now see the massive potential laid before them. Degens (crypto native) and builders (Web3) are the only ones paying attention right now, most of retail won’t start paying attention again until Bitcoin crosses 30k imo. Do what you will with that insight dear reader.

Stacks is an Ecosystem of Giga Chads

This is another reason why Stacks blew up in the wake of ordinal madness. Projects like Satoshibles, Gamma, Xverse, NeoSwap, and more immediately went to work and made ordinals user friendly.

While this is completely unsurprising (after all Satoshibles created the first ETH to STX bridge, and Gamma made the first BNS marketplace…. in like a day) it strikes to the heart of the biggest hurdles in crypto, user interface and user experience. The builders in this ecosystem are a cut above. Not only did this allow for more people to participate with inscriptions and ordinals, but surely this demonstrated that Stacks is so much more than just another 3 letters on Coingecko.

The new entrants into the ecosystem had occassion to see what all of us had already saw. They got to see a decentralized, innovative, blockchain with use case to spare and a deep reservoir of Bitcoin liquidity to put to work.

Stacks Has the Best Community in Crypto

I know what you’re thinking: “Jack, you have said that one-thousand times.” You’re damn right I have, and I’ll say it another thousand before I am done. This is a fact that is worth repeating. The Stacks community is cool.

Nobody likes Bitcoin maxi’s. They are akin to the bad guy from an 80’s movie who is first meeting the new kid from out of town (dicks… anon….they are dicks), and ETH isn’t much better in this regard.

The Stacks community has gathered some of the most thoughtful, and kind people that I have ever encountered during my time in crypto. Now so many more know this truth. As I put the finishing touches on this piece, there are currently scores of new builders and content creators getting ready to take the first steps on their journey to bring more attention to this fantastic ecosystem.

Closing Thoughts

Now that my work life has seemingly leveled out, I will be back hard at work on this blog and my own Stacks project that we have been working on. I have some great interviews and project reviews to work on, and I fully intend to resume my previous pace of content delivery.

Being able to publish so much Stacks related content during the bear market turned out to be a real blessing. I was able to provide a lot of people with a lot of material despite not having time to think, much less write. Something about luck favoring the prepared I suppose. Said material wouldn’t have existed without the outflow of support and encouragement that I have received from you all. I will never be able to fully articulate how much this all means to me, so a sincere “Thank you” will have to suffice.

I am just about out of things to say right now. Thanks as always for reading. Until next time, Jack.

If you haven’t already, take some time and go check out jackbinswitch.com. This is still all early, but I am really trying to build something special here. The debut episode of the We Are Ready podcast will happen on April 8, and I am hoping to organize a Twitter Space or 2 before then.

In addition to that, a medical doctor who I have immense respect for, from a personal and clinical perspective has just launched an alternative health magazine that you should definitely check out called Renegade Health Magazine. Dr. Anarchist understands, like I understand that the healthcare system is totally broken. In reality prevention is key to most maladies, and the field has neglected this in favor of symptom control via medication and treatment. Alternative media such as Renegade Health Magazine should be not only supported, but utilized as a source of vital information to keep the blessing that is good health. Fiat has done more than destroyed our standard of living, it has destroyed our health.