Stacks

Stacks is an open source network of Dapps(decentralised apps) and smart contracts that utilises the infrastructure of the Bitcoin blockchain. By locking in tokens, users earn a portion of Bitcoin miner rewards in BTC. The platform aims to

Enable decentralised apps and smart contracts to inherit all of Bitcoin’s powers”

and its token (STX) is currently priced at $1.38 - up almost 900% from $0.14 this time last year.

A common misconception is that Stacks is a layer-2 system to Bitcoin. Stacks is in fact a layer-1 system running in parallel to Bitcoin while performing its own leader election (a process of delegating work between nodes). All blocks mined on the Stacks blockchain are recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain - allowing Stacks the ‘settlement assurance’ facilitated by Bitcoin. This is especially important to Dapp developers as it guarantees that their code cannot be modified or taken down from the blockchain. The platform also has support for NFT minting and trading through NFT marketplaces such as StacksArt.

Check out Stacks here.