Stacks Roadmap and Product Vision Update

[alexrudloff]

What is the drawbacks of having 100 subnets each doing 500 to 1000 TPS?
Why shouldn’t a chain grow/scale in this way?

I mean, everything always comes down to implementation.

But if there’s 100 subnets, then users should be oblivious to it, and that seems tricky to pull off without fragmenting an already very small audience. And doing so before the value prop of the base layer has even been proven.

Stacks/Blockstacks is what, 8, 9 years old? And we still don’t know if people outside of a small number of us are interested in a project like this?

From my pov, remove as much friction as possible that doesn’t directly tie into the sBTC/Smart Contract use case. If there’s actually demand for it and the chain is working and the community is growing, subnets will still be there to tackle.

But at this point, it seems to me like the move is to simplify things instead of further expanding what sometimes feels like a monument to the software gods and not an actual, real world, useable product. And that doesn’t feel far away, smart contracts just have to be fast since they’re core to the value prop.

Juice the hardware requirements and move on. The financial costs involved in mining/signing prevent it from being decentralized on poor people running pi’s in caves anyway.

[fluidvoice]

@alexrudloff

Juice the hardware requirements and move on.

taking the path of not caring about centralization might be fine for some cohort of users but it could hurt attracting much BTC capital. Would you want to commit billions of $ to a chain controlled by a small number of entities?
So like Bitcoin, I think Stacks should stay “sufficiently” decentralized.

It’s been said that Solana has been gradually becoming more decentralized than where it was when it started but I don’t know the details of this. So obviously even to Solana decentralization is a consideration, if not just for network resilience.

Subnets and compiled contracts are just two ways to improve performance and scaling. There are others, and they all should be considered. Just because Solana is currently leading in many ways doesn’t mean their design is the best or the ONLY one that works. If it was the only, or best, way we wouldn’t see such a large amount of different designs. There are other chains that reportedly can outperform Solana in terms of TTF (time to finality) which is more important o users than TPS.

Spending more on hardware could be a short term solution if and when it’s needed, but since expenses impact the viability of businesses supporting the network, the blockchain optimizations should also be investigated for possible payback of the time/resources invested.

[alexrudloff]

taking the path of not caring about centralization might be fine for some cohort of users but it could hurt attracting much BTC capital.

So like Bitcoin, I think Stacks should stay “sufficiently” decentralized.

We’re likely saying the same thing. I think its sufficiently decentralized already, in that it works, and to me its important to recognize that its unlikely to become more so anytime soon. The capital requirements to mine are too high for most, and bigger money won’t show up until there’s the user demand to justify it.

The lack of user demand is the bottleneck, and one of the ongoing complaints from people building in/around stacks has been the speed of smart contract execution.

There are other chains that reportedly can outperform Solana in terms of TTF (time to finality) which is more important o users than TPS.

Sure. Users just want things to happen quickly and reliably. We can call it whatever we want.

Spending more on hardware could be a short term solution if and when it’s needed , but since expenses impact the viability of businesses supporting the network, the blockchain optimizations should also be investigated for possible payback of the time/resources invested.

I would be very surprised if the people currently involved in running/mining stacks are worried about the financial costs of upgrading their hardware, versus this being a hypothetical concern that won’t ever be applicable if Stacks remains a ghost chain.

[rainer]

We have much less signers than Solana, Stacks onIy has 5 miners and 43 signers.
In fact,Solana is much more decentralized than its begining, in Jan 2021 ,it only has 350+ validators, Solana Year in Review 2020. 2020 was a difficult and challenging… | by Solana | Solana | Medium, now Solana has more than 1400 validators, this proved my forward flywheel theory:

Hardware Upgrade → TPS Enhancement → On-chain Activity Surge (Solana/ETH User Migration) → STX Market Cap Growth → Miner/Signer Expansion → sBTC Supply Scaling → BTCfi Ecosystem Maturation → Reinforced STX Valuation → Recursive Value Creation .

[tygar45]

I would like to see Stacks integrate Chainlink. Dapp builders will need the data feed and Chainlink also has CCIP which would allow sBTC and all other tokens to move crosschain on a top tier bridge.

[brice]

When discussing TPS, it’s important to consider the state of the mempool. Stacks has had no trouble keeping up with recent demand, and the mempool is nearly always empty. If there are no transactions waiting to be mined, no blocks will be produced. Any TPS measurements should take this into account to avoid misleading conclusions.

Before debating block production times, the key first step is identifying the current bottlenecks. From my perspective, three main factors contribute to block mining speed:

1. Block production by the miner
2. Networking: transmitting block proposals to signers and receiving signatures back
3. Block processing on the signer

There’s likely room for optimization in all three, but we need solid data to determine where to focus next.

On hardware requirements, throwing more resources at the problem without understanding the root cause is a temporary fix at best. I’m in favor of decentralization, so I’d advocate for keeping follower node requirements reasonable and low to ensure broad participation in the network. Miners and signers, however, will naturally require more powerful hardware—but those costs should be factored into incentives. Miners might adjust PoX payouts to account for expenses, and signers could demand higher fees or a larger share of rewards for their role.

[Scott]

Im not a technical person but my view as a user…

Success will depend on arriving at a clear vision statement that should alidn with and support the roadmap.

So, were is stacks we headed, or where could it be, where should it be? Lets do a SWOT and PESTLE to help define a few things and canvase the landscape. Once we’ve done this we could match the reqired tech to acheive the vision and talk about incentives to get action.

In summary:

1. Analyse the crypto landscape using SWOT, PESTLE
2. Reaffirm stacks mission statement and value propsition
3. Land our desired use case by functions and users
4. Build a road map around deploying use cases POV
5. Identify required crypto technology stuff to deliver use cases
6. Develop incentive strutures for community to build out the use cases in a coordinatated manner with a fast delivery ship timeframe to maintain market competition.

Lets dive in to get the ball rolling…

1. SWOT
   Strengths of stacks

• decentralised
• highly secure as settle on btc
• can access btc liquidity via sBTC
• great " can do" community
• SEC cleared
  …
  Weaknesses of Stacks
• transaction speed?
• community image and visability
• low market cap
• high market cap when compared to tradtional crypto metrics, tvl, number transactions.
• slow shipping

Opportunities for stacks and crytpo

• sBTC unlocks could bring billions into ecosystem, allowing institutions to earn yield on their btc
• companies are creating btc strategic reserves, stacks could be their platform to park their btc and btc
• defi, use sBTC as collateralized for house loans and business loans, traditional payments, transfer of value
• RWA, leverage stack/btc security to store and transact large complex transactions on chain. Property deeds, futures trading.
• web3 if we link our verified identifies to stacks ecosystem, could make transactions faster, like buying a house, insurances, legal matters, access government services, access complex private sectors services, track transfer of goods etc…imagine the efficiencies in huying and selling a house in days rather than months, theres a lot of friction that could be removed.
• consumer defi: build local communities of value, like the memes model combined with company incentive systems, eg starbucks rewards card loaded onto stacks platorm. I don’t care if i have starbucks consimer credit loaded on my stacks / xverse verified wallet or $leo, its all just value that i want to move around in the community. Creates loyalty, incentives and puts consumer data back with wallet holders.

Threats

• SOLANA - defi, transaction speed
• lack of engagement from shillers and investment gurus
• perception issues
• microstrategy becomes the everything bitcoin company.

Next, we need to discuss above and choose where we want to go, we cant do it all, we cant be it all, we whats our immediate, and medium term focus…institutions, retail value, RWA, defi?

Lets pick institutions…as they will use stacks to first secure their reserves, then logically build apps for retail to access there services, especially the btc community.

So our vision statement: Stacks brings institutions and their customers into crypto via leveraging the most secure network known and simultaneously unlocking monetary value via btc to allow seamless integration between businesses and consumers, allowing a direct, secure relationship…or something like that.

3. Now, use cases…what needs to happen to bring our vision to light.

…over to the community…

[WillCorcoran]

Brice -

Thanks for the thoughtful response and a big+1 from me!

Curious, for the three main block production factors you noted in your response what are the best metrics to monitor for each one? Also, is there a publicly available dashboard you use to monitor those metrics?

Also, separate topic, but curious where signature schema fits into the roadmap conversation? (i.e. SIP-025). In your opinion, is iterating closer towards the original SIP-021 schema (WSTS, I believe) a high / med / low priority?

[BowTiedSirJonathan]

Decentralized Mining Pools

Mining pools play a crucial role in decentralizing the mining process on Stacks. However, for mining pools to function effectively in a decentralized manner, specific components need to be integrated:

1. StackerDB – Communication Layer
   • StackerDB is a key component for facilitating communication among participants.
   • However, its integration lacks proper documentation, making it difficult for developers to understand and utilize its capabilities.
   • Questions that need to be addressed:
     • How do stacks signers communicate using StackerDB?
     • How can a decentralized application interact with and store state using StackerDB?
     • Can StackerDB be used beyond mining pools, and what features does it offer?
   • In the context of mining pools, StackerDB could serve as a communication layer to:
     1. Compute the aggregate key using Weighted Schnorr Threshold Signatures (WSTS).
     2. Establish and update the participants set in the pool.
     3. Notify participants about pool updates and other events that take place in the pool.
2. WSTS Signature – Enabling Multi-Signature Participation
   • Stacks Core has not yet implemented WSTS, but it is planned for a future SIP (cannot add links, check on github stacksgov/sips/blob/main/sips/sip-025/sip-025-iterating-towards-weighted-schnorr-threshold-signatures.md#iteration-2 ).
   • There are no existing examples of how WSTS can be used in complex applications that require multi-party communication.
   • WSTS is crucial for mining pools because it enables the computation of an aggregate key and allows transaction signing by all participants.
   • Once implemented, it will provide a decentralized and secure method for miners to collaborate without relying on a centralized trust.

Change PoX Reward Address Without Penalty

Currently, if a user wants to change their PoX reward address while stacking, they must wait through a one-cycle cooldown, during which their STX remains unstacked, and no rewards are earned. This cooldown is problematic, especially for users managing large amounts of STX.

To improve flexibility, the system could be updated to allow reward address changes mid-cycle:

• The reward address could be updated at any time, provided the change is made at least X burn blocks before the associated rewarded Bitcoin block.
• This would allow the rewards to be sent to the new address dynamically, without affecting slot allocations.
• The parameter X could be chosen to prevent performance issues and race conditions.

Benefits of this update:

• More liquidity in stacking, especially for large accounts that want to adjust their reward distributions.
• Enables new non-custodial stacking solutions, allowing users to receive rewards in sBTC bridged from Bitcoin rewards.
• Reduces inefficiencies caused by the one-cycle cooldown, allowing participants to optimize their stacking strategy.

This change would require modifications to both the PoX contract and Stacks Node, but it would significantly enhance the flexibility and usability of the PoX mechanism.

Non-Custodial Stacking Pools

A decentralized, non-custodial stacking pool could be implemented using the sBTC bridge and Clarity smart contracts.

How it would work:

• Users would stack through a smart contract, without relying on an admin or liquidity provider.

• Rewards can be calculated and distributed by anyone, using on-chain logic, without the need of a centralized entity performing the operations.

• The system would have safeguards to prevent malicious behavior, such as:

  • Cycle extensions limited to one cycle at a time to prevent participants from being locked in longer than intended by others.

• The pool would allow flexible staking amounts, as long as the total pool stacked amount meets the minimum threshold for stacking.

• Once sBTC signers are integrated into the Stacks signers, they would be responsible for dynamically updating the reward address.

• The contract would track the current set of signers by calling the get-signers read-only function within the signers contract (SP000000000000000000002Q6VF78.signers).

• At least 70% of the weighted signers must agree on the new reward address for the update to take effect.

• This ensures a decentralized and secure mechanism for managing BTC rewards and bridging them into sBTC.

Bridging Capital into the Stacks Network: sBTC on Solana and Ethereum

By making sBTC available on both Solana and Ethereum, users on those chains can hold a Bitcoin-pegged asset and easily move it across different ecosystems. They’ll see that sBTC is powered by Stacks, giving them access to yield opportunities on the Stacks blockchain. As a result, it’s much simpler for someone already using Solana or Ethereum to start using Stacks following these steps directly from their ecosystem.

To achieve this , Chainlink’s decentralized Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) can be used for secure cross-chain messaging and proofs. The process could be a lock-and-mint approach: sBTC is locked on Stacks, and an equivalent amount is minted on Solana or Ethereum. When returning the tokens, users burn them on the destination chain, and the locked sBTC is released back on Stacks.

[brice]

Curious, for the three main block production factors you noted in your response what are the best metrics to monitor for each one? Also, is there a publicly available dashboard you use to monitor those metrics?

I don’t think we have these yet.

Also, separate topic, but curious where signature schema fits into the roadmap conversation? (i.e. SIP-025 ). In your opinion, is iterating closer towards the original SIP-021 schema (WSTS, I believe) a high / med / low priority?

I’d put WSTS as low priority at the moment, since the current signer implementation is fine for the current needs. When we want to integrate sBTC signers into the consensus mechanism, then we’ll need WSTS, but until we’re ready for that, I think this is a low priority task.

[HeroGamer]

Looking from a PMF perspective.

Watch Bob’s newly launched Odin Fun platform video to see how fast and smooth the UI/UX is, which has been a massive success.

Let’s imagine this as the end goal:
*The best UI/UX for any Bitcoin Layer 2, whether it’s for Stacks assets or L1 assets.

Transactions are settled and confirmed at lightning speed. (In the video, the user completed 50 runes purchases/transactions in just 10 seconds.)

Now, let’s work backwards from this endgame:

*What types of Stacks technological infrastructure (Blockchain, APIs, Wallet Integration, etc.) are needed to make this possible?

Thinking in this way may help us map out a roadmap for the required steps to achieve this goal.

(Note: I’m not a big blocker either, reason attracted me to Stacks is ability to run on low requirement same ethos as Bitcoin. So I am hoping the solutions to achieve this endgame UI/UX can be implemented without relying solely on centralized databases and servers.)

---

Problem Statement:
*Current UI/UX in the Stacks ecosystem lacks the speed and smoothness needed for seamless transactions, with delays in settlement and confirmation, hindering user experience.

Solution Statement:
*Create the fastest UI/UX for Bitcoin L2 (Stacks and L1 assets), enabling near-instant transaction settlements. Success will be measured by transaction speed, user satisfaction, and increased transaction volume.

Expected Impact:
*Improved user experience through lightning-fast transaction processing
*Enhanced users adoption due to smooth and responsive UI/UX
*Increased transaction volume and usage within the Stacks ecosystem

How Success Will Be Measured:
*Speed of transaction settlement and confirmation
*User satisfaction and engagement with the UI/UX
*Increased number of successful transactions per user within a short period (e.g., 50 purchases in 10 seconds)

[jude]

@HeroGamer

*Current UI/UX in the Stacks ecosystem lacks the speed and smoothness needed for seamless transactions, with delays in settlement and confirmation, hindering user experience.

The recent work with tenure-extends have drastically reduced the latency for all kinds of transactions’ confirmations. You can see evidence of this here: Stacks Hub

[HeroGamer]

Agree. Had to write something for “problem statement” so.
My experience with Stacks transactions over the past month been very joyful and smooth in ~less than 5 seconds.

Let me reframe the problem statement to reflex more accurately.

Problem Statement
Stacks has a strong UI/UX foundation with the Nakamoto upgrade, but there’s an opportunity to further enhance transaction speed and responsiveness for a near-instant experience, ensuring competitiveness in the Bitcoin L2 market. Since most users prioritize fast, seamless interactions, refining the end-to-end flow could help drive greater adoption.

[howardmarin]

Solana and Ethereum are centralized platforms with massive marketing budgets due to insider pre-mints. Stacks should not try to win their game by centralizing itself. In the longer run, SOL and ETH are just testnets for Bitcoin network applications. Why would China ever use SOL or ETH for anything if they can’t control it or, at the least, have no one control it. Lightning Network has no marketing budget and yet attracts many of the best minds in bitcoin. It (not they) just won over support from Tether and El Salvador. Decentralization, security, speed and alignment with bitcoin “values” seem to be key. It’s a neutral platform that scales institutionally and globally. How can Stacks be the smart contract platform for bitcoin in as close a way as Lightning seems to evolving as the neutral and uncensorable platform for payments. More decentralization of mining, stacking and signing.
Specialized Stacks subnets will attract institutions wanting SOL speed and capacity, but anchored in bitcoin security. Those might get regulated and controlled, but Stacks itself should always be seen as free from coercion and control, just like Bitcoin.
SOL and ETH can be selectively banned and key personnel can be detained. Why trust any network to that? Ask Russia. Stacks is the best chance as a platform for smart contract freedom technology. That should be it’s critical advantage over other L2 bitcoin solutions and especially over alt chains.

[snazzy]

“Find out what you’re good at and double down” - Scott Galloway.

Stacks wins by playing to its strengths—not by trying to be everything, but by doubling down on what makes it unique and valuable.

Marketing & Narrative

• Stacks = Bitcoin’s Smart Contract Layer—this message needs to be crystal clear and everywhere.
• We win by owning the Bitcoin economy narrative, making it obvious that Stacks is the best place to build on Bitcoin—secure, scalable, and decentralized.
• sBTC needs to be positioned as the dominant Bitcoin-backed asset, the go-to for DeFi, payments, and beyond.

Sales & Adoption

• Focus on high-value integrations—getting sBTC into major DeFi protocols, exchanges, and wallets. Every integration is an adoption multiplier.
• Make it frictionless for builders—if we want devs to come, we need better tooling, smoother onboarding, and incentives that drive real usage.
• Attract big players—funds, institutions, and power users need to see Stacks as a place where real Bitcoin liquidity lives.

Strategy & Execution

• Lean into Bitcoin’s strengths—security, liquidity, and trust. sBTC and Nakamoto bring finality and security—sell that hard.
• Interoperability is key—Bitcoin is becoming multi-layered, and Stacks should be the most connected, whether that’s to Lightning, Ordinals, Runes, or other Bitcoin layers.
• No distractions, no fluff—we should be obsessed with real-world traction, not just speculative hype.

Products & Ecosystem

• sBTC Utility First—drive use cases in DeFi, payments, and integrations.
• Fast, scalable, and easy to build on—Stacks should be the best developer experience for Bitcoin smart contracts.
• Community-driven innovation—giving builders and contributors a clear path to ship and scale their projects.

Regaining Our First-Mover Advantage

Stacks was here first, but being first isn’t enough—we need to move faster and execute harder than the competition. Other Bitcoin L2s are catching up, but they lack Nakamoto, they lack sBTC, and they lack a thriving builder community.

• sBTC needs to dominate—it should be the Bitcoin-backed asset across all of crypto.
• First-mover means nothing if we don’t out-ship, out-integrate, and out-innovate—we already have the foundation, now it’s about momentum and network effects.
• Bitcoin DeFi is up for grabs—Stacks has the best shot at winning it, but we need execution, urgency, and focus.

The bottom line: We win by being the default Bitcoin layer for smart contracts, assets, and innovation. The race for Bitcoin L2 dominance is on—let’s take back the lead.

[Werner1]

Looking at this thread I feel like commenting on all that has been said. But I also want to keep it brief.

I think it is important to keep Stacks decentralized, it should remain easy for anyone to run a node but I do believe that we should actively thrive to look for the optimums reliable and fast yet with limits to remain decentralized and open. Or we lose the value we have been working for. When tenures are ~15 MB and they renew every 2 minutes or even every 30 sec there is a lot of capacity to work with.
We will need our occasional congestion event to really know and test the limits of the network. Can we start planning those as a community and have a bi-yearly Stacks-congestion-day, everybody chips in?

I would love to see progress in Stacks mining pools to make it easier and economical for more people to participate in mining activities on Stacks. WSTW support for signers may be a low priority target when it comes to support for signers but I think it is important for trust minimized stacks mining pools.

---

Problem statement: BNSv2

Not everyone in the ecosystem has adopted BNSv2 yet, due to some uncertainties about subdomains and incompatible zonefiles.
BNSv2 should be standardized with a stacks improvement proposal (SIP) it should include details for subdomains, and profile schema (I have seen request for RPC standard and this eric’s proposal Proposal for Enhancing BNS Zonefile Configuration).

Solution statement:

Writing the standard for BNSv2 to iron out the details that, so far, have been deliberately left to be decided on later. Success will be measured by the ease with which new apps integrate with BNSv2. We will see those BNSv2 names when you’re connected on a dapp with any account that holds a name. Centralized exchanges adopt BNS(v2) names for transfers.

---

Problem statement:
Running your own stacks node (with hiro API) should be easy and reliable (a personal node doesn’t necessarily have to be as fast but any Stacks users should have the ability to check the chain state for themselves if they want to, just like a bitcoiner can with bitcoin L1).
Running your own stacks node for personal use can be a stepping stone for more sophisticated uses of a node such as running a public node, a signer, a subnet, chain analysis tools and more.

[Algorithm]

@JakeBlockchain

We need to have a discussion about massively increasing the hardware requirements.

Increasing the hardware requirement will be against the ethos of the mother chain Stacks is extending the capabilities and making it more centralized imo.

Second thing: Solana’s speed-like means you are completely trading off the mempool to be just available privately to Signers (validators). Just one of the trade-offs, I mean. I would never trade mempool for anything in blockchain

[Algorithm]

You completely get Stacks

[Algorithm]

+1 @Werner1

[mikesypher]

We think the biggest opportunity to:

1. Rapidly expand the sBTC supply into Stacks
2. Gain free, organic marketing
3. Which both, in turn, will be a positive driver for STX demand

… is to focus on Restaking as a feature. The data does not lie:

/defillama.com/chain/Bitcoin?groupBy=cumulative

Bitcoin TVL has gone from <$1B to >$6B since just October 2024 and almost the entire rise is attributable to Restaking. Not only have BTC owners rushed towards this opportunity it seems like partners have lined up for it as well. What’s amazing is that right now the yield is only being paid in “points” and the strong demand is still there.

Stacks has a unique advantage in that it could hypothetically pay a yield in sBTC or STX (which we know pays yield in BTC). We know Muneeb has mentioned this in his Korea AMA and that it’s on the product roadmap, but we think this should be priority 1, 2 and 3.

Thanks!