Gm 👋

COMING IN MARCH

$20,000+ prize pool

This competition is for all builders who want to build on Bitcoin 🟠 You can build your own idea or tackle sponsored challenges. Sign up is now open.

Register Now

🚢 January Shipped

TALENT PROTOCOL BUILDER REWARDS 

296 builders shipped 3,335 new deployments and 42% were first timers.

January’s top builders

6,773 Total Contracts

39,921 Transactions

💰 Chances To Earn This Month

📜 Fresh From the Docs

• The Cookbook is a collection of focused, reusable coding recipes meant to be referenced, copied, and adapted. Not to be read cover to cover.

• Stacks Core 3.3.0.0.4 adds dimension-specific tenure extensions so DeFi keeps processing critical flows instead of halting during volatility.

📍IRL Events

Welcome back, Stacks builders 👾

Last year we secured the spot of one of the fastest growing dev ecosystems. Let’s keep it going. If you want to get paid to build on Stacks, keep reading.

What Happened in December

Stacks x Talent Protocol Hundreds of Stacks developers have been shipping code and earning rewards by building on the latest Stacks upgrades 🤑 Here’s the results from our 3 week December challenge: 726 builders participated 25,500STX rewarded to 50+ builders 2,002 new deployments across mainnet and testnet Top builders each week 👉 If you’re not in yet, you’re missing paid opportunities to build what’s actually shipping. Next Challenge runs Jan 19 – Feb 1.

Week 1: Clarity 4 Week 2: Chainhook Week 3: WalletConnect

Stacks Ascent 2025 75 builders graduated Ascent Top projects advanced to the Hacker House at DevConnect in Buenos Aires 🇦🇷 and secured grants In 2026, Stacks Ascent will move to invite only. There will be a sharper focus on turning hackathon MVPs into fundable startups.

Jump In Now

Stackers on Skool 🤓
Your new home base for everything DevRel. Stackers will become the hub for Ascent, Builder Challenges, Hackathons, and The Arena: a new monthly, community-voted competition. Invites to Stackers are rolling out now.

USDCx Builder Challenge: $3,000 Prize 💰
From Jan 19–25, build an integration using USDCx bridging from Ethereum to Stacks on DoraHacks. Winner takes all.

Earn Builder Rewards on Talent Protocol: 25,300STX 🟠
From Jan 19 – Feb 1 ship real work and get rewarded for what you build, not how much you tweet.

Coming up soon
👾 DoraHacks February Challenge
👾 Stacks x Talent February Builder Rewards
👾 Buidl Battle (Sign ups Open)

February Events

Pitch Your Buidl

An IRL builder pitch event co-hosted with Talent Protocol to vibe code, ship ideas, meet other builders, and turn early projects into real Stacks builds.

First up, we’re live in: 📍 Lisbon 🗓 February 12 @ 4PM-7:30PM 💰 $2k up for grabs Register Here

Followed by our second event at: 📍 ETH Denver 🗓 February 18 @ 11AM-2PM 💰 $2k up for grabs Register Here

Fresh From the Docs

RPC API Playground
Test API calls directly in the docs against mainnet, testnet, or your local node.
→ Try it 

USDCx Bridging Guide
Step-by-step integration for moving USDC between Ethereum and Stacks via Circle’s xReserve.
→ Read it 

Clarinet: Dead Code Detection
Catch unreachable functions and impossible execution paths before deployment.
Build smaller, safer Clarity contracts with clearer logic.
→ View it

x402 on Stacks (Community Project)
HTTP-level payments for APIs and AI agents. Pay per request with STX or sBTC. Built by Hacker House alum Tony. Over 10k transactions so far 👀
→ Check it 

Everything this month is designed to compound. Start with one event, one build, take the next step, and keep building forward.

Hey there, Stacks developer 👋

The upcoming months are stacked with opportunities to learn, earn, and build. From new hackathons to fresh dev tools and tutorials, here’s what you should know.

👨‍💻 Opportunities & Programs

• Vibe Coding Hackathon starting September 26 with a $25K prize pool on the line. This new competition will help builders supercharge Stacks apps with AI tools like Cursor and Claude Code.

• Stacks Expedition 31 announced: winners of the new Vibe Coding Hackathon, builder competitions, and other efforts will receive a sponsored travel invite to the Stacks Hacker House in Buenos Aires during DevConnect.

• SIP-031 Interim Grants revealed: established builders with indicators of traction or demand can now apply for the new interim grants program.

• Decentralized Grants Program: Cohort three, with a $100K pool, has been announced. Applications open this week on the official DeGrants website.

📃 Dev updates

• Stacks Labs: officially created as the new operational entity managing the Stacks Endowment, designed to fund ecosystem growth.

• Clarity 4: a major upgrade for security and developer experience, including verifying a contract’s code body, native post-conditions inside Clarity contracts, easier string conversion, block timestamps, and more.

• Hiro Release Roundup: Clarinet v3.4.0 and Hiro Docs 3.0 — faster, clearer, and reorganized for easier navigation.

• Meet the Stacks builders: join us at Building on Bitcoin Singapore (September 30), Bitcoin Builders Buenos Aires (November 19), New York (October 8), or Bitcoin is more with Stacks Niamey (October 11).

⭐ Dev Reward Programs

• Stacks Ascent: up to $25K in grants + fundraising support for aspiring Stacks founders.

• Code for STX: 10,000+ STX distributed monthly. Submit valid PRs, improve projects, and get rewarded. The new Streaks feature rewards consistent builders with even bigger payouts.

🍀Evergreen Learning Resources

• LearnWeb3 Course 3: build DeFi on Stacks: vaults, flash loans, lending pools.

• Stacks Builder’s Primer: a 5-day crash course for brushing up your Clarity skills.

Hey there, Stacks developer 👋

As core organizations across the Stacks ecosystem launch new initiatives to boost liquidity and incentives on Bitcoin’s leading L2, the Stacks Foundation is introducing a builder program designed to help scale both startups and careers: Stacks Ascent. This program supports developers who want to go full-time in the ecosystem with grants, funding, and personalized guidance. Let’s take a look at what else is launching, and how builders can take advantage.

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👨‍💻 News & Programs

• Stacks Ascent: The Stacks Foundation launches a new initiative to help builders scale their career or startup on Stacks with over $25K in grants available for devs.

• Code for STX: Over 10,000 STX is up for grabs with Code for STX, now with the introduction of Streaks, meaning bigger rewards for consistent devs.

• Buidl Battle: Winners of the latest startup competition got announced, with multiple incredible projects getting connected to VCs and accelerators.

• Stacks 2025: listen in to the upcoming Stacks livestream on what’s ahead for the leading Bitcoin L2.

📃 New Available Resources

• LearnWeb3 Course 2: A new online course to build full-stack apps on Stacks.

• Stacking DAO Dev Breakdown: Hiro’s Eric Choy breaks down the smart contract of Stacking DAO

• Bitcoin Data in Clarity: Clarity smart contracts can react to Bitcoin L1 transactions, but how can you use this?

🐦 Awesome Builder Post

Buidl Battle Startup Competition winner Rozar shared his idea “Blaze” live on the Leather Lounge.

Twitter tweet

Hey there, Stacks developer 👋

sBTC hit its cap-2 in less than a day! To celebrate, we’re excited to announce that Buidl Battle has officially started! Buidl Battle is the latest Stacks startup competition including $90,000 in prizes, an opportunity to get selected for the new Stacks builders program, and interviews with leading VCs and accelerators attending the pitch days.

Let’s dive into this month’s Stacks dev news 👇️ 

Don’t want to receive a monthly email? No hard feelings! Hit unsubscribe at the bottom.

👨‍💻 News & Programs

• Buidl Battle: The startup competition has started today. You can still take part by going to the Dora Hacks page and join the official Telegram group.

• Stacks Ascent: Part of the Buidl Battle opportunities includes getting scouted by Stacks Ascent, the new Stacks builder program to receive financial and technical resources that help you succeed with your Stacks startup.

• Code for STX: A new month with more opportunities to earn from a 10,000 STX monthly prize pool for submitting new Stacks smart contract code.

📃 New Available Resources

• New Full Stack Stacks App Course: LearnWeb3, in partnership with the Stacks Foundation, released a new course to build full stack Stacks apps.

• Expanded sBTC testing support: You can now easily test sBTC in all of your development environments.

• Hiro Stacks Connect Release: Hiro shipped a major release of Stacks Connect, which streamlines your app code and makes it much easier for wallets to add new functionality.

☘️ Evergreen Clarity Courses

• Stacks Primer: five emails to fully brush up on your Clarity skills

• LearnWeb3 Stacks Developer Degree: get an official Clarity LW3 developer degree.

🐦 Awesome Builder Post

Larry Salibra built a wallet app that sends sBTC using bitcoin addresses instead of Stacks addresses. Cool! 🔥Check it out below 👇️

Twitter tweet

Hey there, Stacks developer 👋

We’re kicking things off with big news! This week’s planned Nakamoto Testnet hard fork was successful. You can see fast blocks in the explorer and not only enjoy today’s speed, but also get excited that continued optimizations will make them even faster.

❗️ Reminder to submit your code for this month’s $20,000 Code for Stacks prize pool. To up the stakes, new “consistency” and exclusive dev event boosters are introduced to the program. Find out more by registering for the free virtual BTC Bash developer event!

Don’t want to receive a monthly email? No hard feelings! Hit unsubscribe at the bottom.

👨‍💻 News & Programs

• BTC Bash is an upcoming virtual developer event focused on Stacks, covering new Clarity tutorials, sBTC workshops, and Nakamoto Release education.

• BTC Bash Code Booster: if you register for the BTC Bash event, you will get exclusive access to a $10,000 Code for Stacks program booster. This means that you can win from a $30,000 prize pool just by submitting code.

• Code for Stacks: The deadline to submit code and win from a 10,000 STX prize pool is today! Are you too late? Start preparing for October’s submissions.

• Harvard Hackathon: Hiro, EasyA, and the Stacks Foundation are hosting a Stacks hackathon at Harvard.

• Spanish Hack: the Stacks Latin America community is hosting a hackathon in Spanish.

📃 New Available Resources

• Refresher: how to build, test, and integrate a Clarity smart contract with the Hiro Platform.

• New tutorial: Kenny Rogers teaches you how to use the Hiro platform to create a basic lending protocol contracts with Clarity.

☘️ Evergreen Clarity Courses

• Stacks Primer: five emails to fully brush up on your Clarity skills

• LearnWeb3 Stacks Developer Degree: get an official Clarity LW3 developer degree.

⭐ Builder be buildin’

• One-man dev army Khoa Nguyen, Founder of token launchpad Stacks City, shipped multiple features including, view all bonding curve trading, holdings, track assets, including NFTs, and monitor activities: swaps, transfers, and more.

🐦 Awesome Builder Tweet

Twitter tweet