Stacks

Stacks' Ivy League origins Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea founded Blockstack (which later rebranded to Stacks) in 2013 at the Princeton Computer Science department to solve the underlying problems of current web and mobile apps. Muneeb’s Ph.D. thesis was on Blockstack. The two led their new startup through the Y Combinator accelerator in the summer of 2014. Upon completion, the two raised a seed round led by Union Square Ventures (USV), with participation from Naval Ravikant, SV Angel, and others.

After launching a blockchain-based decentralized identity (DID) system in 2014, the team released the initial design for the then-Blockstack platform in 2015. They began R&D on its peer-to-peer communication and data storage system. The R&D phase lasted through 2017 and concluded with Blockstack releasing an alpha version of its developer platform, which included a developer release of the Blockstack Browser and a decentralized storage system. By the end of 2017, the company also secured two additional funding rounds via a Series A, led by USV, with participation from Lux Capital, Digital Currency Group, and others, as well as a token offering through the Reg D framework. (See the Fundraising section below for more details)

Reenvisioning how users interact with applications With its initial funding secured, Blockstack continued to realize its vision: building a full-stack solution for decentralized applications (dApps). The platform's focus is to replace the reliance on centralized cloud service providers and applications that require the storage of user information on these services to operate.

At a high level, Stacks processes run on the user’s client, and data is stored individually. While the platform integrates a native blockchain, most computing is done on the edges, i.e., client devices. This design allows Blockstack to run a scalable network that uses the blockchain only when necessary.

Users can control their data on Stacks thanks to a unique ID system, which is recorded on the blockchain. This ID gives users the ability to independently store data in a medium of their choice and removes the need to maintain passwords for authentication.

Mainnet launch and Reg A qualified token offering Stacks released a testnet for its blockchain (dubbed the Stacks network) in Q2 '18 and officially launched the Stacks v1 mainnet in October of the same year. This launch also distributed tokens to early investors and unlocked token transactions.

The team also introduced a pilot of its App Mining program with 38 registered apps. App Mining is Stacks' mechanism for incentivizing projects and developers to build on the Stacks network as the top applications by monthly active users receive STX rewards. The number of participating Stacks Ecosystem apps ballooned to almost 300 in its first twelve months. Stacks has since paused the App Mining program due to the challenges involved in providing an objectively fair distribution and weeding out those projects that were gaming the system. The Stacks Foundation plans to reopen the program under a new design after the launch of Stacks v2.

In July 2019, Hiro PBC (then called Blockstack PBC) held the first token offering to qualify for the Reg A exemption. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the startup spent almost a year working with the SEC to meet the qualifications. By meeting the exemption terms, Hiro's unprecedented token offering landed the company another $15.5 million in capital. Investors received their tokens via a network hard fork about a month after the sale closed.

Current status Hiro PBC is headquartered in New York City with a team that includes computer scientists from Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and other top universities. Hiro PBC is the public benefit corporation at the heart of the Blockstack ecosystem.

As of November 2019, Hiro PBC has raised over $75 million from equity investments and token offerings -- about $23.0 million from two token offerings in 2019, $47.5 million from a token offering in 2017, and $5.1 million in equity investments. Investors in the Stacks Ecosystem include USV, Lux Capital, Zhen Fund, HashKey, Recruit Holding, SNZ, Digital Currency Group, Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, Winklevoss Capital, and over 4,500 other entities and individuals.

As of Oct. 2019, almost 300 applications are built on the platform with contributions from more than 100 independent developer teams. The Stacks network is still in v1, with v2 expected to launch sometime in Q4 2020. The next iteration, Stacks v2, will introduce functionality for Stacks' native smart contract language called Clarity and a new consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Transfer (PoX). Under PoX, independent Stacks miners will secure the network by pledging Bitcoin as collateral in exchange for the chance to earn newly minted STX tokens. The pledged Bitcoin will go to STX stakers (which Stacks calls "stackers"), who also help secure the network.

The project underwent a full rebrand in Oct. 2020. First, the community rebranded the Blockstack network and application ecosystem to the Stacks Ecosystem. Then, Blockstack PBC changed its company name to Hiro PBC and shifted its focus from guiding the Stacks blockchain to building developer tools for the network.