Tokensoft, an institutional platform for securely managing digital assets and getting SEC-registered blockchain securities to market, today announced a partnership with Anchorage, a qualified custodian, to develop xBTC on Stacks 2.0, a blockchain that enables apps and smart contracts on Bitcoin.
Together, they will provide institutional-grade custody and programmability of new digital assets on Stacks 2.0 via Wrapped. The partnership will enable Bitcoin (BTC) to be natively wrapped on the Stacks 2.0 blockchain, an important step toward native decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin and a move that could help activate and deploy the ~$627B in largely passively held capital on the network.
Stacks 2.0 blockchain has the unique design of using the Bitcoin blockchain for security and Bitcoin as a reserve cryptocurrency. The novel consensus mechanism of the chain, Proof-of-Transfer (PoX), bridges two blockchains — Stacks and Bitcoin.
xBTC is first asset that is secured by Bitcoin itself. Every xBTC token creation and transfer on Stacks 2.0 is secured by the Bitcoin blockchain. To change the history of asset definition or transfer, an attacker would need to attack Bitcoin itself. Contracts using xBTC can also monitor the state of the Bitcoin chain for example to verify BTC balances on any specific address on Bitcoin
Not only does this innovation enable new use cases like DeFi on Bitcoin, it also makes it possible for decentralized apps to leverage Bitcoin’s security and brings smart contracts to Bitcoin, potentially opening up a new era of innovation on the network. Bitcoin on Stacks will be called xBTC and can be expected for release at the end of Q1 2021.
Muneeb Ali, Co-Founder of Stacks and CEO at Hiro PBC, said, “The integration by Tokensoft will set the stage for native Bitcoin DeFi and an evolution in decentralized application security and cross-chain compatibility. Wrapping BTC on Stacks 2.0 will help grow the Bitcoin ecosystem and expand Bitcoin as a reserve cryptocurrency. xBTC can be the first of many wrapped assets on Stacks 2.0 and I look forward to seeing the community’s creative DeFi solutions.”
“The creation of xBTC on Stacks 2.0 is an industry-first; we’re wrapping digital assets in a safe and secure manner with the assurance of predictable smart contracts written in Clarity and the ultimate backing of Bitcoin” said CEO at Tokensoft, Mason Borda. “Upon launch, Wrapped and Stacks 2.0 will provide the first native solution to build wrapped assets on the Bitcoin blockchain, opening up Bitcoin as a new frontier for DeFi.”
Since the Stacks 2.0 blockchain uses Bitcoin to secure its own network, the integration will give Tokensoft users the security of Bitcoin to settle smart contract transactions on the world’s most secure blockchain. Using Bitcoin as a value settlement layer empowers developers across the broader crypto ecosystem to build smart contracts and apps on Bitcoin. The predictable, secure, and interoperable smart contract language, Clarity, will be used to extend the functionality of wrapped assets and create a new, powerful ecosystem for native Bitcoin DeFi.
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