 Stacks' smart contracts reach record high ahead of Nakamoto upgrade 
2024-09-08

Stacks reached a new all-time high in smart contract deployment just days before the much-anticipated Nakamoto upgrade was activated. 
Stacks, the Bitcoin network’s smart contract layer, reached a new all-time high of over 1,400 monthly smart contracts deployed.
Stacks announced the record high in a Sept. 7 X post:
Cointelegraph
The new record high comes ahead of the full activation of the Nakamoto upgrade, which started rolling out at the Bitcoin block 840,360 on Aug. 28. 
The upgrade is expected to revolutionize Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (DeFi), also known as BTCFi, a new technological paradigm that aims to bring DeFi capabilities to the world’s first blockchain network.
Nakamoto is a huge upgrade for Bitcoin DeFi and L2 scalability
The much-awaited Nakamoto upgrade could be a “huge leap” for Bitcoin DeFi and layer-2 (L2) scalability, according to Diego Mey, the co-founder of Bitflow Finance.
He wrote in a Sept. 7 X post:
Mithil Thakore, the co-founder and CEO of Velar Bitcoin liquidity protocol, noted in a Sept. 7 X post that the upgrade will also reduce Stacks’ block time to five seconds and create 100% Bitcoin finality.
Cointelegraph
Stacks is known as Bitcoin’s smart contract layer, as it enables the deployment of smart contracts on the world’s first blockchain network.
 Nakamoto upgrade just days away
The final hard fork block to deliver the full activation of the Nakamoto upgrade is just days away.
Cointelegraph
The Nakamoto upgrade’s activation window opened on Aug. 28, but the exact date of the full activation is yet to be determined by core developers.
This is because developers opted to see at least two full “Stacking cycles” to make sure that the network remains stable ahead of the full activation.
Stacks’s upcoming Bitcoin-backed (BTC) token, sBTC, will roll out four weeks after the Nakamoto upgrade was finalized and is currently “on track to meet this schedule,” according to Stacks.
The upgrade was named after the Bitcoin network’s pseudonymous creator, known as Satoshi Nakamoto.