Stacks in Five Minutes: A Complete Guide to the Network That's Growing Bitcoin

Over a trillion dollars in Bitcoin sits idle. The vast majority earns no yield, gets lent to no one, and plays no active role in the digital economy. For Bitcoin to succeed long term, it needs to become productive capital. Stacks makes that possible, giving BTC holders the tools to deploy their Bitcoin and earn on it.

Stacks is the default rails for everything that happens with Bitcoin, from payments and capital markets to lending, borrowing, and autonomous AI agents executing onchain decisions. Stacks is growing Bitcoin.

The network has grown into the leading Bitcoin layer by BTC deployed, with over $545 million in sBTC TVL as reported by Nansen. Stacks also sees over $100M in Bitcoin staking pilot participation, and on the builder side it ranks as the #5 fastest-growing developer ecosystem according to Electric Capita’s developer report numbers. The network's numbers back that up, with over 500,000 total funded wallets created and millions of transactions that have already settled on Bitcoin to date. It is also the layer that has distributed the highest amount of Bitcoin across any comparable network.

After you’ve finished reading this, read: Stacks by the numbers | Q1 2026 Snapshot

How Stacks Works

Stacks is a Bitcoin layer that produces its own blocks every few seconds while settling on Bitcoin approximately every 10 minutes. This gives applications the speed needed for real-time DeFi, trading, and AI agent activity, while anchoring everything to Bitcoin's security.

When a new Bitcoin block is produced, all Stacks transactions from that window become secured by Bitcoin's full security budget. Once confirmed, they are as irreversible as Bitcoin transactions. This is called Bitcoin finality, and it's what separates Stacks from networks that reference Bitcoin without inheriting its security.

The network is secured through Proof of Transfer (PoX), where miners spend BTC to mine Stacks blocks and earn STX in return. This creates a direct economic link between Bitcoin and Stacks, and gives applications on the network native read access to Bitcoin's full state.

sBTC: Moving Bitcoin In and Out

sBTC is a 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset on the Stacks network, secured by a decentralized signer set that requires 70% consensus to approve any deposit or withdrawal. There is no single custodian or bridge operator holding keys. It is the most trust-minimized way to use Bitcoin in DeFi today.

Once BTC is deposited as sBTC, it becomes programmable. Holders can lend it, borrow against it, provide liquidity, or deploy it into yield strategies. When they're done, they withdraw back to Bitcoin L1 without relying on any single entity. Everything in between is secured by Bitcoin finality.

sBTC has crossed 5,000+ BTC in deposits, and the deposit cap has been fully removed, meaning that there is no artificial ceiling on how much Bitcoin can flow into the network. Early use cases already extend beyond traditional DeFi: AI agents on Stacks are beginning to use sBTC as their standard form of capital, autonomously earning Bitcoin on-chain.

What You Can Do on Stacks Today

Stacks has a live, functioning financial app ecosystem built for Bitcoin, and each protocol represents another way that Stacks is growing Bitcoin for its holders.

• Bitflow: The primary DEX and AMM on Stacks, routing Bitcoin liquidity through concentrated liquidity pools with its new concentrated liquidity exchange system.
• Zest Protocol: A Bitcoin-native lending and borrowing market. Users deposit sBTC to earn yield or borrow against their holdings. V2 launched in 2026 with improved capital efficiency, higher caps, and smoother liquidation mechanics.
• Hermetica: Hermetica currently has a Bitcoin-backed yield bearing stablecoin named USDh. The team has announced to expand their Stacks product suite with the introduction of a Bitcoin Earn Vault. The product allows investors to deploy Bitcoin capital into a vault, with the vault mechanics performing automated financial activities that result in Bitcoin yield for the depositors.
• AIBTC: AI BTC is the leading protocol for deploying Autonomous AI agents that use Bitcoin as capital, making economic decisions onchain without human intervention. 150+ autonomous agents deployed, tens of thousands in transactions, and reports show on-chain proof of AI Agents earning Bitcoin autonomously. AI BTC is one of the examples of how Stacks is growing Bitcoin into entirely new use cases like the agentic economy.
• Dual Stacking: the Bitcoin staking pilot product that allows BTC holders to move their asset over to the Stacks layer and combine it with STX to earn yield on their Bitcoin. The product has $100M in capital participating since late 2025. Further research and development is currently in motion to build a Bitcoin staking product designed to let BTC holders earn yield without moving BTC to Stacks, with STX exposure increasing that yield. This product will be the first self-custodial Bitcoin Staking product that yields native Bitcoin.

The ecosystem extends further with 50+ total protocols and applications currently live on the network.

STX: the fuel for growing Bitcoin

Every transaction, smart contract call, and agent activity on Stacks uses STX as gas in the backend. Miners spend Bitcoin to earn the STX spend by users of the network on gas for performing economy activities such as transacting and supplying lending and borrowing. Stackers lock STX to secure the network and receive the Bitcoin spent by miners as a reward. The entire economic loop, from network security to DeFi activity to the agentic economy, operates on STX. It’s the asset that fuels the rails to grow Bitcoin. STX allows Bitcoin to be used in the digital economy without centralized powers controlling financial activity.

As Stacks grows and more Bitcoin flows into Bitcoin-native finance protocols, more transactions happen, more fees are generated, and more demand flows through STX. When the upcoming Bitcoin staking product launches, STX becomes staking capacity, meaning holding STX directly increases the yield a BTC holder can earn on their Bitcoin kept on the base layer. The system needs STX to function, and each new use case for Bitcoin on Stacks reinforces that.

We cover STX in more depth in our dedicated piece: STX: The Rails Behind Stacks and Bitcoin Staking.

Institutional-Grade Infrastructure

Stacks is built for more than retail economic activity. The network has integrations with Grayscale (public STX trust), BitGo and Fireblocks for institutional custody, and Circle's USDC for tier-1 stablecoin liquidity. Fireblocks alone provides over 1,800 institutional customers with access to Bitcoin DeFi through Stacks, and this is just a glimpse into why Stacks is the institutional-grade infrastructure for Bitcoin capital to be productive.

The importance of this is highlighted by the next wave of Bitcoin capital coming from capital firms growing their Bitcoin holdings, public treasuries looking for yield, companies that hold BTC on their balance sheets, and eventually yield-bearing Bitcoin ETFs. Stacks' institutional infrastructure is already in place for this digital economic trend to accelerate.

What's Next

Self-custodial Bitcoin staking is in active research and development, designed to let BTC holders earn yield without giving up custody. Core contributors see this as the highest impact opportunity on the Stacks roadmap. We cover it in depth here: Self-Custodial Bitcoin Staking: What It Means for BTC Holders

To front run upcoming demand for using Stacks as the rails for Bitcoin capital, there are numerous upcoming network upgrades planned that continue to make the chain faster and more reliable under load. A great example of this already happening is the March 2026 3.3.0.0.6. upgrade, aimed at sustaining fast and reliable transactions for BTC AI Agents and DeFi as throughput numbers rise. Beyond the upcoming self-custodial Bitcoin staking product bringing in more capital to Stacks, core contributors are looking to expand Stacks’ capabilities with privacy features for Bitcoin, Self-custodial transactions, and more.

Stacks is growing Bitcoin, growing the digital and now also agentic economy built on it, and growing the rails that make all of it possible.

Ready to put your Bitcoin to work? Start with our guide: How You Can Earn Bitcoin on Stacks.