This Week’s News & Stories - Fri, 14 Aug 2026
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Gm 👋
😋 Stacks Snacks
The Genesis Bond now has a block height. It runs during reward cycle 143, starting at Bitcoin block 966,350. The bond opens around Sept 10, and the first rewards are projected for Sept 17.
New Stacks DeFi TVL figures are out via Castle Labs, and lending makes up 90% of it: Zest $64M, Granite $7.5M, Hermetica $5.3M, and Bitflow $2.6M.
Restaking after the hard fork was a real community effort, and it showed: 392M STX has been restaked ahead of cycle 141, about 88% of cycle 140's 446M STX. If you missed this one, be sure to restake before the next cycle.
A 90-day incentive program kicks off on Stacks around Sept 10, paying 1 BTC per month for DeFi activity with Zest and Bitflow across USDCx borrowing and liquidity.
👀 Other Tasty Content
Almost 7 years ago, STX became the first crypto to receive SEC qualification under a Regulation A+ offering. Hard to believe it's been that long.
Stacks Labs CEO, Alex Miller, will be on site at SALT's Wyoming Blockchain Symposium next week, connecting with institutional leaders and discussing how Stacks is growing Bitcoin through Bitcoin-native finance and Bitcoin Staking.
The two lowest USDC borrow rates against Bitcoin collateral in DeFi are both on Stacks: Granite at 1.73% and Zest at 2.17%, while every other major market sits above 3.9%.
Happy staking, Stakers 😉
Stacks is a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts. It enables decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as an asset and settle transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. Stacks exists to unlock Bitcoin’s full potential as the largest, most valuable, durable, and decentralized asset. Learn more here.