After
years
of
R&D,
the
Stacks
blockchain
is
getting
an
overhaul.
The
rollout
of
the
popular
Bitcoin
scaling
layer’s
largest
upgrade
to
date
began
at
Bitcoin
block
height
840,360
(around
14:30
UTC),
beginning
a
two-step
process
that
will
end
sometime
in
late
May.
Called
Nakamoto,
honoring
Bitcoin’s
pseudonymous
creator,
the
upgrade
will
decouple
the
Stacks
block
production
schedule
from
Bitcoin’s.
Although
the
layer-2
network
has
a
higher
transaction
throughput
than
Bitcoin
(which
processes
about
7
transactions
per
second),
as
initially
designed,
Stacks
produced
blocks
at
the
same
rate
as
Bitcoin,
leading
to
congestion
issues,
network
creator
Muneeb
Ali
told
CoinDesk.
Nakamoto
will
introduce
a
new
way
of
producing
Stacks
blocks,
updating
its
bespoke
proof-of-transfer
consensus
algorithm.
Starting
today,
new
block
“signers”
will
start
coming
online
to
validate
“tenures”
of
transactions.
At
first,
until
the
upgrade
is
fully
activated
in
May,
this
will
all
be
for
“’practice,”
Stacks
developers
said
on
X.
(If
you
want
to
learn
more
about
what’s
changing
on
a
technical
level,
read
here.)
For
casual
users
of
Stacks,
the
developers
recommend
checking
you’re
using
an
updated
wallet,
which
in
many
cases
should
happen
automatically.
For
those
who
stake
their
STX
tokens,
the
instantiation
on
Monday
automatically
unlocked
those
tokens,
which
can
then
be
restaked
when
Nakamoto-compliant
pools
come
online,
likely
sometime
next
week.
There
is
currently
about
$1.3
billion
worth
of
STX
staked
on-chain,
representing
about
one-third
of
the
total
$4.2
billion
circulating
supply,
making
it
one
the
largest
interest-earning
pools
of
capital
related
to
bitcoin.
The
token
has
rallied
more
than
16%
to
about
$2.90
over
the
past
24
hours,
pushing
it
for
the
first
time
into
the
top
25
tokens
by
market
capitalization.