The Weekly Stack: Building a user-owned internet 🌐
Welcome to Gamma's weekly newsletter! Here, you'll find all the latest news and alpha related to Bitcoin NFTs on Stacks.
Moon bound! 🚀
Ready for takeoff!? Gamma has partnered with 40 apps & creators on Stacks to host a treasure hunt and quest for Bitcoin NFTs! Two dozen 1/1s from top artists on Gamma will be awarded to random winners. Plus, enter and you’ll get a chance to win a grand prize of 10 million sats (0.1 BTC). Start your quest now 👇
Building a user-owned internet 🌐
In the age of digitally interconnected global communities, it’s ever more important for us to build towards a free, fair, and open internet for all. With the rise of crypto — and notably, NFTs — we can now prove ownership in the most robust, secure, and decentralized way possible: with Bitcoin.
The latest talk of the town in the Bitcoin community has been controversially around other assets on Bitcoin, such as NFTs. As the most notable and decentralized blockchain ecosystem, Bitcoin serves many use cases around permission-less payments. But what about things like ownership and IP rights around art and music? Perhaps, there is a way to satisfy all of the above and use Bitcoin as the foundational layer for the next generation of the internet — Web3.
Building on Bitcoin with Stacks
The Stacks blockchain provides a blockchain technology that uses Bitcoin's high security while allowing the creation of smart contracts, using a smart contract language called Clarity, which has an easy to read syntax.
Despite Bitcoin (BTC) being the most well-known blockchain and biggest cryptocurrency, its smart contract use cases have been limited due to its scalability, speed and syntax limitations. The Stacks network aims to change this, and unlock Bitcoin's potential.
On Gamma, the Stacks blockchain allows us to help creators publish and host their own NFT collections — that they fully own the rights and smart contracts to. To learn more about the Stacks blockchain and how applications built on Stacks utilize Bitcoin’s security, read our primer on the Stacks blockchain.
Resources & Education 📚
Did you know that most of our creators come to Gamma after hearing about Bitcoin NFTs from a friend in the Stacks community? Share the love and onboard your friends to Bitcoin NFTs by sharing and retweeting this thread 👇
Why do we build on Stacks?
While Bitcoin is the most secure, reliable, and fully decentralized blockchain that exists today, its smart contract use cases have been limited due to its scalability, speed and syntax limitations. The Stacks blockchain offers a novel and scalable approach to Bitcoin NFTs, as well as the largest and fastest growing Web3 project in the Bitcoin ecosystem. 💪
The Stacks ecosystem has its own programming language similar to Solidity, called Clarity. Clarity is an interpreted language, which means the code is human-readable. By design, it requires smart contracts to publish their source code on the blockchain, giving users the ability to verify that code and developers more tools with which to build and innovate.
This means that you’ll always know the details of your transaction before signing. Curious about Clarity? Read more about how it works down below and how you can get started as a developer
Start your Clarity journey
Interested in learning how to build Bitcoin applications just like Gamma? Check out 100 Days of Clarity, a course created by fellow Stacks community member and Bitcoin Badgers builder, Setzeus.
Ready to dive in? Watch the first 20 days for free on Youtube. 👇
Featured Artists & Collections 🎨
Photography NFTs 📸
Have you browsed our collection of photography NFTs lately? Check out some of the talented photographers on Gamma by heading to the Photography category.
Here are some of our favorite photography collections still actively minting:
Blue Hour at Black Sand Beach by rickcotter.btc
Bali Light Collection by jasonmatias.btc
Featured artist of the week
This week we’re featuring Jake Sheykhet, an ambitious and self-described medieval artist born in the 21st century, currently studying at Brown University. Since taking his first art class at four years old, his passion hasn’t faded since.
Jake derives lots of inspiration from the likes of Tarkovsky’s Spiritual Surrealism, a style and feeling he aims to evoke in his own work. As a lifelong physical artist, Jake has recently entered the NFT scene and now hosts an interview space for fellow artists in NFTs.
Check out Jake’s incredible debut wireframe sculpture NFTs, now minting on Gamma.
Thanks for tuning in! We’ll see you next week.