Stacks has announced that its Bitcoin Staking feature has successfully attracted approximately 735 BTC during its initial two bonding periods on the mainnet. This information was detailed in the project’s Q3 2026 ecosystem update, released on October 15.
This total was achieved through two distinct bonding windows. The first, known as the Genesis Bond, commenced on September 10, 2026, contributing 230 BTC to the overall amount.
The second bonding period started around October 10, 2026, and secured roughly 505 BTC. With a target capacity of about 500 BTC, this bond reached its limit successfully.
A significant portion of the second round’s contributions came via a single source. Approximately 483 out of the 505 BTC staked in Bond 2 were through Stacking DAO’s stBTC, a liquid staking token.
This stBTC approach allowed a large portion of Bond 2 to remain available as collateral across various decentralized finance (DeFi) applications while simultaneously generating staking yields.
The estimated yield is around 3% APY, disbursed weekly in BTC.
Additionally, Stacks reported a more than 25% increase in the staking of its native STX token following the implementation of the PoX-5 hard fork on July 30, 2026. Since that upgrade, staked STX tokens have risen from 392 million to 493 million.
PoX, or Proof of Transfer, has been the consensus mechanism in use by Stacks since 2021. Instead of consuming energy like traditional Bitcoin mining, Stacks miners commit BTC to participate in the network. The update highlighted that since the launch of this mechanism, miners have pledged over 4,200 BTC. The recent PoX-5 is the latest enhancement of this system, with the Genesis Bond being initiated approximately six weeks post-activation.
Stacks identified several institutions that took part in this process, including 21Shares, HashKey Cloud, UTXO Management, and Sypher Capital. For custody services, collaborations were established with Fireblocks, Fordefi, and Anchorage Digital.
With about 483 BTC from Bond 2 being processed through stBTC, it is evident that this liquid staking provider played a pivotal role in this bonding period.
Stacks anticipates that Bond 3 will be introduced in November.