Bitcoin Defi will emerge as a prevailing narrative in the coming months. Bitcoin is entering a new phase: expanding beyond digital gold into a useful & yield-generating asset. With BTC poised to grow from $2T to $5-10T in the coming years, there is increasing demand for secure, native BTC yield. Here’s why Bitcoin Defi is the next big narrative and where we see the biggest opportunities forming in this space 👇

it's important not to forget what we've achieved: stacks is scaling the bitcoin economy with transactions as irreversible as bitcoin's. goal this year: grow the amount of apps and users using stacks. https://t.co/Djpdugbfr7

Winners Announced: The Buidl Battle Competition 🟧 Over the past few weeks, @StacksOrg hosted the Buidl Battle—an open competition for Bitcoin builders to ship powerful new tools, protocols, and apps across the Bitcoin ecosystem. With nearly a hundred submissions, two intense judging rounds, and a finale judged by top-tier VCs, Buidl Battle proved that the next wave of Bitcoin apps is already being built. Round 1: Themed Innovation Round 1 of the Buidl Battle was organized around four major themes: DeFi, the Digital Economy, Real World NFTs, and Developer Tooling. Each theme surfaced winners who demonstrated strong technical execution and potential for real impact on Bitcoin and Stacks. DeFi 🏆 BigMarket – A Bitcoin-native, AI-powered prediction market 🥈 BitForward – NFT-backed forward contracts using Bitcoin as collateral Digital Economy 🏆 KultureFun – Token-gated wallet chat and ad channel with DAO governance 🥈 StacksTube – AI-driven memecoin launchpad and entertainment platform Real World NFTs 🏆 Offers & Counter Offers – A seamless marketplace for BNS name trading 🥈 Truth-Chain – Onchain verification for digital content authenticity Tooling / Infrastructure 🏆 Blaze – A scaling protocol for fast off-chain transfers with secure onchain settlement 🥈 PoX Agents – Conversational interface for blockchain operations Partner Challenges To expand the playing field, partners held Challenges, incentivizing builders with more prizes for building innovative solutions with cutting-edge technology on the Internet Computer Protocol, AWS Bedrock platform, and AIBTC’s Agent-governed DAO platform. ICP Challenge 🏆 ckBoost — Reduce confirmation times to 15 minutes while rewarding liquidity providers 🥈 CounterParty ICP — API for retrieving asset information related to the Counterparty AWS Bedrock Challenge 🏆 StacksAI – AI-powered Clarity contract generator leveraging AWS Bedrock. Honorable Mentions Alongside these winners, a number of strong entries earned Honorable Mentions, including AutoStacks, Claride, Stacks Brain, Creator’s Web3 Economy, Bitcoin Loan Bank, TipCloud, Bolt Protocol, Kraxel, and Skullcoin. Wildcard Finalists To keep the competition dynamic and inclusive, four teams were nominated as Wildcard Finalists based on creativity, execution, and promise: TipCloud Bolt Protocol Kraxel Skullcoin After a final vote, Bolt Protocol—which enables users to pay transaction fees with sBTC and supports instant transfers between Bolt Wallets—earned its spot in the finals as the Wildcard Winner. From Builders to Finalists Round 1 was judged by a panel of experienced developers and startup operators who selected the top projects from each theme. These winners advanced to Round 2, where venture capitalists judged the finalists based on the problem their product solves, their vision, and team execution. Round 2: The Final Showdown In Round 2, twelve finalists—eight selected from the four themes, three teams from the partner challenge categories, and one wildcard—competed for the top prize. After pitches, demos, and a lot of deliberation, the judges awarded: 🏅 4th Place: ckBoost (ICP Challenge) 🥉 3rd Place: BitForward (Bitcoin DeFi Theme) 🥈 2nd Place: BigMarket (Bitcoin DeFi Theme) 🥇 1st Place: Blaze Protocol (Infra & Tooling Theme) Blaze Protocol by @lordrozar stood out as the most well-executed and visionary project, offering a new scaling layer for Bitcoin and Stacks apps with responsive, invisible blockchain interactions. The team impressed with both technical execution and long-term potential. What’s Next? The Buidl Battle was more than just a hackathon—it was a showcase of what’s possible when Bitcoin builders are given the right tools, support, and platform to build. These teams now have a launchpad to take their prototypes into production, and the Stacks community will be watching—and supporting—every step of the way. To all the builders: You showed up. You shipped. And you’re building the future of Bitcoin.

Mainstream Bitcoin adoption is on the rise and the Stacks ecosystem is helping lead the way. Major props to @afkhwaja and LUMS’s Center for Digital Asset Research for pushing Bitcoin adoption forward. 📍 Event live on Lumar: LUMS CeDAR Launch Event https://t.co/EVySm448Sm

stx dev szn. 1. hundreds of builders participated in the latest stx hackathon with nearly 100 submissions. 2. the stacks foundation in partnership with multiple orgs announced a new builder program: stacks ascent. https://t.co/49ebjxJ6sd

The Wait is over — Velar Artha PerpDex now LIVE on @Stacks Now trade perps on Bitcoin with: • 5x leverage • sBTC <> USDh Pair • 100% Bitcoin security Start trading now: https://t.co/Hl0SzttPtA https://t.co/uFNonpXYGq

beyond excited for this one, so many initiatives and plans that are extremely bullish for the whole stx eco and bitcoin economy. april 14, 2025: check pinned post for more details. https://t.co/PzsgWQOkAQ

STX DEV SZN continues: new hack opportunity. @hirosystems just launched s March Hiro Hack. Deadline: April 1st at midnight EDT. View thread or Hiro's pinned post for more info. https://t.co/xWc7zTC396

we´re seeing a lot more people come to the stx eco right now. most of them hold stx and btc. let´s make sure they stack their stx to secure the network and earn btc. bitcoin always wins. https://t.co/JNzh4T63cN