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What is Blockstack Cryptocurrency and STX Coin?

source-logo  newslogical.com 27 July 2020 21:00, UTC

Blockstack (STX) is an ecosystem of private and secure applications that allow users to be in charge of their data and identity. There are over 300 applications built on the Blockstack blockchain, nevertheless, all these apps cannot alter or transfer user’s data without their permission.

Blockstack aims at connecting developers who are longing for building a decentralized internet with users who want to be in charge of their data and privacy.

Blockstack is a decentralized computing platform that has so far assisted users to control their identity, as Apps built on the network eliminates data breaching and trust violations.

Open-source software is at the earth of everything done on the Blockstack network, making it possible for over 100 independent developer teams to build apps on the platform.

The public test net of an upgraded version of Blockstack blockchain, Stake 2.0 was launched in April 2020, present the same approach as Web 3.0. Blockstack regards Stack 2.0 as the largest single effort the blockchain network channeled toward giving people property rights.

The upgrade is designed to help developers in making progress. With Stack 2.0, developers can now write expressive smart contracts and experiment with new business models, this is matched with the security and durability of Bitcoin.

More clarity in smart contract language is introduced with the development of Stack 2.0, and developers are enabled with Web 3.0 applications in the toolset.

What is Stacks token (STX)

For transaction purposes among others, the Blockstack network has a native token known as Stacks (STX). The STX token gets consumed once a user register on blockchain-based identities on the network.

While there is no mining on the Blockstack network, the 1.32 billion genesis block Stacks tokens that were created since inception is expected to decrease because of burning, hence creating scarcity. However, Blockstack blockchain introduced Proof-of-Burn (PoB) mining mechanism in 2020, letting miners get a reward in STX after burning base crypto Bitcoin to participate in the consensus algorithm.

The team behind the blockchain network later introduced a replacement for PoB mining SIP-001 to abolish the burning of the base crypto. Using a new concept of Proof-of-Transfer (PoX), the team introduced Stacking consensus as an improvement. With the upgrade, miner will only transfer their Bitcoin STX holders who are participant in the new consensus algorithm.

No doubt mining will increase the supply of Stack token in circulation, but the blockchain network said the number of tokens added will be administered under a governing principle known as “adaptive mint and burn.”

Benefits of Blockstack Blockchain Network

The Blockstack network offers varieties of benefits in the cryptocurrency world which include, Incentive mechanisms for ecosystem growth, Support for truly independent mobile clients, Decentralized governance of protocol upgrades, and advanced features like atomic swaps.

Blockstack enables users to continuously own and manage their data on all new and old internet platforms, where all decentralized apps are run locally.

Also, Blockstack allows its users to get digital keys to create their own identity on its network using the power of blockchain. Users have full control over storage as they can choose to store their data locally or connect to a storage hosting provider. However, the sharing of content on the Blockstack network is achieved through a secure and encrypted medium.

Where to Buy Blockstack

Blockstack token Stack (STX) is listed on top cryptocurrency exchanges. A few reliable exchanges where you can purchase Blockstack are Coinex, TOKOK, Binance, KuCoin, and Hashkey Pro’s institutional exchange.

Also, Blockstack can be bought directly from the Blockstack website.

Where to Store Blockstack

At the moment, you can store Blockstack is the Blockstack wallet software, after creating the Blockstack wallet you will need to set up a seed phrase. A seed phrase is similar to a banking pin, it gives you the access to your wallet and token allocation. However, you can never access your wallet if you lose your seed phrase as it is not recoverable.

Blockstack does not keep a copy of your seed phrase and cannot give you another seed phrase, neither can Blockstack access your wallet for you if you lose your seed phrase. Hence strict cautions are advised when handling the Blockstack software wallet and its seed phrase.

Furthermore, it is impossible to send Bitcoin to your Stack address, but you can add Bitcoin as a fuel to the wallet. The Stack wallet is available on wallet.blockstack.org.

Blockstack Blockchain History

The internet, earlier designed to be decentralized, after some time fell under the control of a few large corporations, bringing a big threat to freedom of speech, open markets, and data ownership.

In a bid to put users back in control of their digital lives, two engineers from Princeton University, Muneeeb Ali, and Ryan Shea started working on a decentralized internet to secured by blockchain, Blockstack, in 2013 as an open-source project.

Blockstack became the first company to receive SEC approval to sell digital tokens in July 2019 and had since then been available for Peer-to-peer trading in exchange for cash and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Trading History

Blockstack is currently listed for trading on a number of exchanges for trade. Blockstack has a market cap of $67 million with a circulating supply of 480 million STX.

Blockstack hit an all-time high of $0.375404 on the 25th of October, 2019 and an all-time low of $0.04559639 about three months ago, precisely on March 13th, 2020.

The maximum supply of the 89th ranked cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap is 2 billion STX.

Features of Blockstack Blockchain

The Stack protocol, with its native Blockstack token, enables the following features:

Light-client Support: Blockstack currently has a protocol that allows light-client to verify data fetched from un-trusted nodes, using a trusted consensus hash. This is because running a full node to independently verify transactions and data mapping could be resource-intensive for light clients.

This usher in Bitcoin-like Simplified Payment Verification (SPV), client support, and truly decentralized apps on mobile devices. Since mobile devices are the vast majority of end-user devices, supporting them is vital for the growth of the ecosystem, and it enables users with low-end computing devices to easily connect to the network.

Atomic Swaps: Atomic swaps of assets on the Blockstack network allows a truly decentralized exchange of domain names and preserves the privacy of parties involved in the transaction. Atomic swaps make it possible for a person to start a new transaction to list a domain name for sale, and another person could buy the domain name with tokens. This functionality does not require the services of trusted exchanges, middlemen, or escrow services.

Presently domain names on Blockstack can be listed for sale on commerce sites like Sedo, eBay, and purchased by anyone interested in buying them.

Namespace Auctioning: Namespace auctioning is currently enabled on the Blockstack network in a bid to establish a better price for namespace based on market demand. This feature is a future work on the Stack protocol and can be enabled by a native account-based Blockstack token.

Advanced Payments: contrary to UTXO-based tokens like Bitcoin which enables more expressive payment transactions, Blockstack token as an account-based token allows namespace creators to specify an address, through which they wish to collect name registration proceeds, this feature can be expanded to cover multiple namespace owners. Hence it allows a group of users to be able to collectively purchase and maintain a namespace, where the creator will have the incentive to develop a community of users around their namespace, each user will get a fraction of the rewards.

Blockstack Team

The Blockstack team is made up of experts in distributed systems, user experience, and security. The team includes 5 Ph.D. holders from Stanford, Princeton, and engineers from Waterloo, MIT, amongst others.

Here are the team members:

  • Muneeb Ali, CEO, and Co-founder
  • Albert Wenger, Managing Partner, USV
  • JP Singh, Professor, Princeton
  • Michael Freedman, Advisor, Technical
  • Dave Morin, Advisor, Product
  • Ryan Shea, Co-Founder
  • Jude Nelson, Engineering Partner
  • Aaron Blankstein, Engineering Partner
  • Larry Salibra, Engineering Partner
  • Gina Abrams, People Ops Partner
  • Guy Lepage, Design Partner
  • Patrick Stanley, Growth Partner
  • Jack Zampolin, Engineering Partner
  • Ken Liao, Engineering Partner
  • Sebastian Dunkel, Product Support
  • Shannon Voight, Blockstack Summit
  • Xan Ditkoff, Signature Fund
  • Trevor Owens, Technical Advisor
  • Michael Freedman, Technical Advisor
  • JP Singh, Technical Advisor

Stacks Roadmap

The Blockstack future roadmap is innovative and user-centered, the network in the H2 of 2020 plans to introduce Stacks 2.0 mainnet after successful five testnet phases. This will shortly be followed by the release of:

Clarity smart contract language on Stacks 2.0 mainnet, Collections for sharing user data between apps, Android Stacks 2.0 wallet with Ledger integration, Community-driven App Mining 2.0 proposals, and experimental grants Login SDKs for easy on-boarding, Clarity language tooling, and developer resources.

Blockstacks has the following plans for 2021

Ecosystem grants for Blockstack infrastructure and integrations.

Request for Startups (RFS) for the Blockstack ecosystem

App Mining 2.0 for app developer incentives

App chains for scaling apps and new crypto assets.

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