Stacks, the leading Bitcoin Layer 2, is bringing native Bitcoin liquidity to broader DeFi ecosystems with Wormhole’s NTT (Native Token Transfers) standard. For the first time ever, sBTC, a decentralized, trust-minimized Bitcoin peg, and STX, Stacks’ native token, will expand multichain, starting with native deployments to Solana and Sui.
Introducing Stacks: Bitcoin’s Premier Layer 2
Stacks is the leading Bitcoin Layer 2 by market capitalization, developer activity, and native BTC TVL, unlocking over $1 trillion in passive Bitcoin capital and making BTC a fully programmable, productive asset. With institutional support from validators including BitGo, Hex Trust, Figment, Blockdaemon, and Copper, Stacks offers the unique value proposition of BTC-denominated yield through its Proof of Transfer consensus mechanism.
The recent Nakamoto upgrade activated in October 2024 brought near-instant transaction finality and speeds on par with leading L2s, while retaining Bitcoin’s security and irreversibility. The launch of sBTC in December 2024 opened the door for developers and users to use native BTC in smart contracts, DeFi applications, and pay gas fees with BTC directly.
sBTC represents the most decentralized, Bitcoin-native programmable BTC asset available, addressing the surging global demand for Bitcoin-native yield and programmable Bitcoin liquidity that maintains direct connection to Bitcoin’s security model.
STX serves as the native utility token powering Stacks’ unique Proof of Transfer consensus mechanism, enabling permissionless Bitcoin mining rewards and trustless peg operations that maintain Bitcoin’s decentralized principles without relying on custodians or federated systems.
What is NTT?
Wormhole NTT (Native Token Transfers) is a flexible and open standard for seamlessly transferring native tokens across blockchains while preserving their intrinsic properties. Built on Wormhole's battle-tested interoperability infrastructure and secured by the Guardian Network, NTT tokens meet the highest standards of security.
NTT’s reliability is demonstrated by its widespread industry adoption, with the NTT standard already powering natively multichain tokens for leading protocols such as Sky's USDS and Lido's wstETH.
Why NTT?
NTT is the preferred multichain token standard for both sBTC and STX, enabling native issuance across major DeFi ecosystems. This integration opens the floodgates for Bitcoin liquidity to flow into leading DeFi platforms while facilitating reciprocal liquidity flows that allow assets from other chains to access Stacks’ native Bitcoin DeFi applications and BTC-denominated yields.
Stacks will retain full control over its tokens’ behavior on each chain, including customizability, metadata management, contract ownership, and upgradeability. This will ensure compatibility with any token standard or governance system, offering unparalleled flexibility and adaptability as the protocol expands across chains.
sBTC and STX will be deployed on Solana and Sui using NTT’s burn-and-mint mode, creating a unified supply that is managed and maintained across all supported chains with no wrapped tokens. This eliminates liquidity fragmentation, allowing for users to participate in Bitcoin-native DeFi on multiple chains while maintaining the security and decentralization advantages unique to the Stacks L2.
Activating $2 Trillion in Bitcoin Capital
The integration will address the massive opportunity in Bitcoin’s $2 trillion market cap, which has largely remained on the sidelines of DeFi innovation. sBTC serves as the most “native to Bitcoin” programmable BTC asset, meeting DeFi’s need for secure, decentralized Bitcoin liquidity without compromising on Bitcoin’s core principles.
The integration also represents a catalyst for the next era of decentralized finance, bridging Bitcoin’s unmatched security and liquidity with the innovation of multichain DeFi, making native Bitcoin more accessible across the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Take Your Token Multichain with NTT
NTT is already being used by some of crypto’s most systemically important assets, like Lido’s wstETH and Sky’s (formerly Maker) USDS, to unify users and liquidity.
Check out the Wormhole NTT Docs, or get in touch to go multichain and grow your token’s reach with an open and flexible standard trusted by the industry’s leading crypto assets.
Learn More
Learn more about NTT in a 15-minute workshop given by Wormhole Foundation Product Lead, Nikhil Suri.
About Wormhole
Wormhole is the leading interoperability platform that powers multichain applications and bridges at scale. Wormhole provides developers access to liquidity and users on over 40 of the leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases that span DeFi, NFTs, governance, and more.
The wider Wormhole network is trusted and used by teams like Circle and Uniswap. To date, the platform has facilitated the transfer of over 60 billion dollars through over 1 billion cross-chain messages. To learn more about Wormhole, follow on X, join the Discord, or read more on the blog.