Muneeb Ali (Blockstack) on Bitcoin-based Smart Contracts (EP.156)

Muneeb Ali, cofounder of Blockstack, joins the show to talk about the launch of Stacks 2.0 and its evolution from a securities offering to a freely tradable instrument in the U.S.

• New developments with Stacks and a novel legal opinion
• What constitutes sufficient decentralization and how Blockstack took cues from regulators
• Why Blockstack felt empowered to list their token on public US exchanges
• The current state of Blockstack governance
• Reflections on Ethereum's purported transmutation
• How Blockstack did the first reg A+ securities offering for a cryptoasset
• Why securities registration is worthwhile for token issuance
• Whether the SEC disclosure framework is suitable for the issuance of a token
• Alternative disclosure and securities offering frameworks for registered token issuance
• Whether Blockstack was willing to treat Stacks as a security in perpetuity
• Why security tokens haven't taken off in the US so far
• The evolution from Stacks 1.0 to Stacks 2.0, and the differences between the two
• Why Blockstack chose to build on Bitcoin, and how they managed to do so in an efficient manner
• Why Blockstack chose not to build a distinct chain in its own right
• Why Bitcoin's inflexibility as a base layer makes it a suitable underlying protocol
• How Muneeb thinks about Stacks value accrual
• Blockstack's transaction-based consensus mechanism relying on Bitcoin
• Why Blockstack chose not to use OP_RETURN
• The relationship between Blockstack usage and BTC value accrual
• Muneeb's response to the criticism of their regulated token issuance model

Key readings:

• Wilson Sonsini's Summary of Memorandum Regarding the Status of the Stacks Tokens Upon Adoption of Stacks Blockchain 2.0

Sponsor notes:

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