Accelerating Stacks Core Development: Introducing Bitcoin L2 Labs
//: QUICK HITS
- With ~$20m in funding, support from the Stacks Foundation, and in concert with various Working Groups, Bitcoin L2 Labs is building a dedicated home for Stacks Core Development.
- Bitcoin L2 Labs will use a product-driven approach to enable the ecosystem to ship key features faster and provide regular progress updates on core development
- The team is led by Adriano Di Luzio, former CTO at Algorand Labs, and Head of Product Adriano Serrano, formerly Zcash and long-time top Stacks contributor
Accelerating Stacks Core Development: Introducing Bitcoin L2 Labs
Introducing Bitcoin L2 Labs, an organization focused on accelerating Stacks core development and Bitcoin L2 adoption. For those of you we haven’t met, Bitcoin L2 Labs has been an active contributor over the past year. Now, with the experience we’ve gained and the team we’ve built, we are thrilled to re-introduce ourselves and share how we’re doubling down to support the leading Bitcoin L2. In this post, we’ll share our plans for leading the way on the next stage of Stacks core development, introduce the leaders of our team, and even share our new brand.
//: WHAT WE DO
First and foremost, Bitcoin L2 Labs will be taking a leading role in Stacks Core Development. This includes building a dedicated team of core developers that will work on the Stacks protocol. We’ve already made significant progress on this, adding 5 new full-time Rust developers and a DevOps lead to our ranks. Our team has already taken a leadership role with sBTC and we’ll continue to gain fluency and add capacity in other parts of the full Stacks layer going forward, especially Signer and Miner software.
Our mission is to accelerate Stacks Core Development, to ship upgrades faster and at a more predictable cadence, while streamlining the developer experience. We’re going to make sure it gets easier to connect and collaborate, bringing core developers together around a product-driven cycle. We’ll ensure that as a decentralized ecosystem, we remain aligned on overall goals, operate with shared scoping standards, provide accurate projections to stakeholders, and execute efficiently.
A key piece of this will be facilitating an ecosystem-wide roadmapping process on a regular basis. Our approach will factor in builders' needs while streamlining technical communications, ensuring clear and timely updates for our community of developers and stakeholders. We’re incredibly excited to push forward product-led R&D that will open up new possibilities for the Stacks layer while reducing friction and continually making it easier to build on Bitcoin.
//: WHY US
As builders already deeply embedded in the Stacks community, we have a unique understanding of the needs and aspirations of our developers, users, and stakeholders. Our expertise in Bitcoin L2 technology, close connections within the ecosystem, experience optimizing security for the protocol, and track record of securing key partnerships will help us to accelerate technical milestones, understand priorities for Stacks, and drive innovation within the ecosystem.
As CTO, Adriano Di Luzio brings a decade’s worth of deep blockchain and distributed systems experience. Before joining Bitcoin L2 Labs this summer, Adriano was the CTO at Algorand Labs where he oversaw blockchain products aimed at institutional adoption. He is passionate about building products that make a difference and bring real value to the people using them. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Sapienza University of Rome, where he focused on cryptography, security, and privacy for distributed systems.
As Head of Product, Andre Serrano will bring both wide-ranging experience within Web3, but also several years of direct Stacks ecosystem experience. He previously led Business Development for Zcash, where he managed strategic partnerships and also spent time as an investor at Novablock Capital. In his role, he is building up on the efforts first started as a standout Resident at the Stacks Foundation, overseeing product development, crafting go-to-market strategies for sBTC, and running the Bitcoin Writes newsletter.
As we lean into this challenge, we are committed to fostering collaboration, enhancing communication, and ensuring that all voices in the community are heard as we work together toward a more scalable and vibrant future for Stacks.
//: WHOS HELPING
In declaring our intent to take a leadership role in core development, we’re grateful to share that the wider ecosystem has been supporting us in preparing for success. In addition to our initial $20 million in funding, we’ve tapped into recruiting support, trained auditors, introductions, onboarding to custody and other service providers key to accelerating our operations, and so much more. As work continues on sBTC, we’ve also secured Critical Bounties from the Stacks Foundation for several builders and agencies that are working on key pieces of sBTC infrastructure alongside us.
In close collaboration with the Stacks Foundation, as well as the Clarity, Business Development, and DeFi Working Groups, Hiro, Trust Machines, Degen Labs, Signal21, and just about every known builder on Stacks, we’ve been able to hone our team to bring you all something we know fills a need and will be a critical aspect of Stacks’ exciting next chapter.
//: WHATS NEXT
As we build a go-to place for core development and core developers to thrive, we’ll be moving forward several specific projects:
//: WE BITCOIN
Today, we’re also sharing our new brand, an effort we’ve put together as a symbol of our continued dedication to the leading Bitcoin L2 and this community. We’ve been happy to contribute mostly from behind the scenes, but now we also want you to know to look for us when it comes to core development and product leadership. As such, we wanted to be sure we matched the incredible level of professionalism and style that builders on Stacks exemplify.
And last but not least, we want to invite you to reach out, collaborate, or even join our team. You can learn more about us on our new website, which we’ll continue to add to and drop updates on via our blog. Thank you for this incredible opportunity to build on Bitcoin with you, we’re here to serve.
First and foremost, Bitcoin L2 Labs will be taking a leading role in Stacks Core Development. This includes building a dedicated team of core developers that will work on the Stacks protocol. We’ve already made significant progress on this, adding 5 new full-time Rust developers and a DevOps lead to our ranks. Our team has already taken a leadership role with sBTC and we’ll continue to gain fluency and add capacity in other parts of the full Stacks layer going forward, especially Signer and Miner software.
Our mission is to accelerate Stacks Core Development, to ship upgrades faster and at a more predictable cadence, while streamlining the developer experience. We’re going to make sure it gets easier to connect and collaborate, bringing core developers together around a product-driven cycle. We’ll ensure that as a decentralized ecosystem, we remain aligned on overall goals, operate with shared scoping standards, provide accurate projections to stakeholders, and execute efficiently.
A key piece of this will be facilitating an ecosystem-wide roadmapping process on a regular basis. Our approach will factor in builders' needs while streamlining technical communications, ensuring clear and timely updates for our community of developers and stakeholders. We’re incredibly excited to push forward product-led R&D that will open up new possibilities for the Stacks layer while reducing friction and continually making it easier to build on Bitcoin.
//: WHY US
As builders already deeply embedded in the Stacks community, we have a unique understanding of the needs and aspirations of our developers, users, and stakeholders. Our expertise in Bitcoin L2 technology, close connections within the ecosystem, experience optimizing security for the protocol, and track record of securing key partnerships will help us to accelerate technical milestones, understand priorities for Stacks, and drive innovation within the ecosystem.
As CTO, Adriano Di Luzio brings a decade’s worth of deep blockchain and distributed systems experience. Before joining Bitcoin L2 Labs this summer, Adriano was the CTO at Algorand Labs where he oversaw blockchain products aimed at institutional adoption. He is passionate about building products that make a difference and bring real value to the people using them. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Sapienza University of Rome, where he focused on cryptography, security, and privacy for distributed systems.
As Head of Product, Andre Serrano will bring both wide-ranging experience within Web3, but also several years of direct Stacks ecosystem experience. He previously led Business Development for Zcash, where he managed strategic partnerships and also spent time as an investor at Novablock Capital. In his role, he is building up on the efforts first started as a standout Resident at the Stacks Foundation, overseeing product development, crafting go-to-market strategies for sBTC, and running the Bitcoin Writes newsletter.
As we lean into this challenge, we are committed to fostering collaboration, enhancing communication, and ensuring that all voices in the community are heard as we work together toward a more scalable and vibrant future for Stacks.
//: WHOS HELPING
In declaring our intent to take a leadership role in core development, we’re grateful to share that the wider ecosystem has been supporting us in preparing for success. In addition to our initial $20 million in funding, we’ve tapped into recruiting support, trained auditors, introductions, onboarding to custody and other service providers key to accelerating our operations, and so much more. As work continues on sBTC, we’ve also secured Critical Bounties from the Stacks Foundation for several builders and agencies that are working on key pieces of sBTC infrastructure alongside us.
In close collaboration with the Stacks Foundation, as well as the Clarity, Business Development, and DeFi Working Groups, Hiro, Trust Machines, Degen Labs, Signal21, and just about every known builder on Stacks, we’ve been able to hone our team to bring you all something we know fills a need and will be a critical aspect of Stacks’ exciting next chapter.
//: WHATS NEXT
As we build a go-to place for core development and core developers to thrive, we’ll be moving forward several specific projects:
- Championing sBTC development, while supporting the ecosystem with the go-to-market strategy and tactics.
- Proposing and enabling changes to make core development more efficient, accessible, and transparent. This will likely include a shift toward smaller, but much more frequent releases, as well as changes to communication patterns coming out of the core development group.
- Continuing to support broader ecosystem security through our ‘Orange Hats’ program, which recently helped bring Hypernative online to better protect ecosystem builders.
- Facilitating a research and feedback-driven process to strengthen (and then maintain) the overall Stacks roadmap beyond sBTC.
//: WE BITCOIN
Today, we’re also sharing our new brand, an effort we’ve put together as a symbol of our continued dedication to the leading Bitcoin L2 and this community. We’ve been happy to contribute mostly from behind the scenes, but now we also want you to know to look for us when it comes to core development and product leadership. As such, we wanted to be sure we matched the incredible level of professionalism and style that builders on Stacks exemplify.
And last but not least, we want to invite you to reach out, collaborate, or even join our team. You can learn more about us on our new website, which we’ll continue to add to and drop updates on via our blog. Thank you for this incredible opportunity to build on Bitcoin with you, we’re here to serve.
Tell us what you think of our new look and feel!