Stacks expands with Blockdaemon, NEAR Foundation amid BTC surge

Stacks, one of the leading Bitcoin layer-2 networks with smart contract functionality, has announced receiving a commitment from six new signers, including Blockdaemon, NEAR Foundation, DeSpread, Luxor, Chorus One, Kiln, Restake, and Alum Labs.

The organizations are joining Stacks’ existing list of signers that include Copper, Figment, Loganodes, Xverse, and Ryder, according to a March 5 press release, shared with Cointelegraph.

The new signers on Stacks aim to further enhance the network’s security and decentralization, according to Andre Serrano, sBTC Resident at The Stacks Foundation. Serrano wrote:

“Today’s announcement is a significant step toward our mission of bringing Bitcoin to a billion people around the world in a fast, cost-efficient, and secure way. The addition of these Signers demonstrates a commitment to fostering greater decentralization of the Stacks network. Together, we are poised to unlock exciting new use cases for Bitcoin.”

Signers on Stacks are responsible for validating blocks and processing transactions, ensuring network integrity. Stacks is the leading Bitcoin layer-2 regarding developer traction and market capitalization.

Stacks’s STX token fell 5.55% in the 24 hours leading up to 1:00 p.m. UTC, to trade at $2.90. The coin is down over 5% on the weekly chart, but up over 93% during the past month, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Satcks’ new announcement comes ahead of the network’s upcoming Nakamoto and sBTC releases, which aim to bring faster transaction speeds with 100% Bitcoin finality. While the Nakamoto release will begin between Apr. 15-29, the SBTC Developer release is scheduled for Q4 2022.

In the wider crypto space, interest in the Bitcoin ecosystem is growing, thanks to the bullish price action of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin market cap reached a new all-time high of $1.35 trillion on March 5, briefly surpassing Silver to become the eighth-largest asset in the world.

The new all-time high comes a day after Bitcoin recorded its highest daily close at $68,245 on March 4, beating its previous record close of $67,525 on Nov. 8, 2021 — bolstering analyst expectations that Bitcoin price could reach $100,000 before the end of 2024.

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