An Unignorable New Narrative of Counterfeit: American Institutions & Gray Concept Coins

Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

After much anticipation, the imitation season has finally arrived.

The imitation season index has surpassed 88, reaching a historical high, meaning that 87 out of the top 100 projects by market capitalization have seen a 90-day increase greater than Bitcoin, with surprising gains from older coins like XRP, HBAR, and XLM.

This may be the new Trump trade.

With Trump's victory, the market has begun to position itself for potential policy dividends. Potential policies revealed by Trump's camp indicate that U.S. crypto assets may receive capital gains tax exemptions, which has immediately attracted the attention of traditional funds. In this context, U.S. crypto projects with strong regulatory compliance and traditional institutional backgrounds have become the focus of institutional investors.

In addition to asset qualification, there needs to be suitable channels for institutions to enter, such as the asset being listed on Coinbase or being selected by Grayscale, with corresponding Grayscale trust products.

According to statistics from Deep Tide TechFlow, in the past 30 days, the assets held by Grayscale Trust have achieved an average increase of 218.27% based on market capitalization weighting.

Following this line of thought, which assets that are compliant in the U.S. and have a Grayscale concept will attract attention next?

Perhaps you need to pay attention to the leading projects in the BTC ecosystem, Stacks (STX), which is one of the only two cryptocurrencies that have passed SEC compliance review. STX completed a rare Regulation A+ issuance and is one of the few crypto assets approved for public sale to U.S. retail investors.

Additionally, STX is also a Grayscale concept coin, which can be directly purchased through Grayscale trust products.

Moreover, today's STX is different from a few months ago; after the Nakamoto upgrade, it has become a true Bitcoin Layer 2.

Previously, Stacks transactions required waiting for the Bitcoin network to generate a new block, often leading to confirmation times of up to an hour. However, with the "fast block confirmation" mechanism introduced after the Nakamoto upgrade, transaction confirmation times have been reduced to just a few minutes while maintaining the same level of security as the Bitcoin network.

Even more groundbreaking is the upcoming sBTC.

As a decentralized two-way anchoring solution for Bitcoin, sBTC aims to make Bitcoin, the "digital gold," truly programmable. Users can lock BTC on the Bitcoin mainnet and receive an equivalent amount of sBTC on the Stacks network, allowing them to participate in smart contract interactions and apply it to DeFi, NFT, and other scenarios.

In the current context where the total locked value (TVL) of Bitcoin DeFi accounts for less than 1% of the market, these technological innovations from Stacks could be key to activating the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.

Stacks has announced that sBTC will be deployed in two phases, with the first phase supporting Bitcoin deposit functionality on December 16, 2024; the second phase is expected to launch 6-8 weeks after the first phase, at which point Bitcoin withdrawal functionality will be opened.

For new assets, the most important question is who will use them? Therefore, finding application scenarios for the asset becomes crucial. Stacks has created a robust journey for sBTC, building alliances to attract more institutions to join.

Currently, sBTC has received support from over 20 well-known institutions, including BitGo and Blockdaemon. For example, Bitcoin ATM operator Coinflip will integrate Stacks and sBTC, currently serving 400,000 customers, allowing for sBTC conversion transactions directly at Bitcoin ATMs in the future.

Overall, Stacks is paving an innovative and practical development path for the Bitcoin ecosystem.