Stacks Ventures Turns One, Welcomes Ryan Shea, and the Stacks Ecosystem Takes Shape.

Kyle Ellicott

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Published in

Coinmonks

3 min readMay 31, 2022

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May 2022

At Stacks Ventures, our mission is to make Bitcoin the settlement layer of Web3 by investing in outstanding startup teams building new use cases for the world’s first and most secure cryptocurrency.

The Stacks ecosystem saw significant growth since the mainnet launches of Stacks (Jan’ 21) & CityCoins protocol with more than 400k wallet addresses, 200k+ NFTs minted on Stacks, and multiple partners opening network bridges welcoming new users, applications, and added liquidity. Stacks has more active developers and is bringing more capital to build on Bitcoin than any other project.

To date, Stacks Ventures has supported over 49 companies building at all layers of the technical stack from core infrastructure to middleware to applications; opened a dedicated CityCoins program; co-launched the Bitcoin Odyssey $165.0M Pledge in March; debuted our new pre-accelerator program earlier, and are approaching our latest Demo Day event. None of which would be possible without the community’s support, the founders building, our team members, partners, mentors, LPs, and advisors — some of the leading thought leaders since the beginning.

Staying committed to our mission of investing and supporting founders building on Bitcoin, we are constantly pushing to grow with the industry to bring in new resources needed for the lifecycle of companies at all stages — including ourselves. We’re excited to announce our latest advisor, Ryan Shea, co-founder of Stacks, angel investor, and engineer at heart. Ryan brings a wealth of knowledge to the team and for founders past & present building on Bitcoin. He’s also recently posted a new proposal around Stacks mining.

In a comment, Trevor Owens, the Managing Partner at Stacks Ventures, had this to say about Ryan’s acceptance to support the future builders on Bitcoin:

“When I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013, Ryan was the only person I knew in the NYC startup scene who read the entire source code and was able to explain every aspect of why it was a revolutionary technology. It’s no wonder he continued on to Co-Found Stacks and kickstart what could become one of the most important blockchains in the industry. We’re honored to have him join the board and bring not only his deep knowledge of blockchain and startups to the table but also his knowledge of ventures. As a seed-stage investor in nine unicorns like OpenSea and Lightning Labs, Ryan has proven his success on two fronts, and we will tap him to bolster the success of Stacks Ventures and all startups building new use cases for Bitcoin.”

Ryan joins a collaborative advisory group at Stacks Ventures, including Freehold Founder Patrick Stanley; Daemon Technologies Founder Xan Ditkoff; Stacks Foundation team members Mitchell Cuevas & Jenny Mith; and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Hiro Systems Diwaker Gupta.

Welcome, Ryan!

About Stacks Ventures — We invest and support startups building new applications and use cases for Bitcoin. We provided teams with a growth platform of resources, including the Stacks Accelerator, a three-month intensive program backed by leading entities within the Stacks ecosystem. For more information, visit StacksVentures.io.

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Stacks Ventures Turns One, Welcomes Ryan Shea, and the Stacks Ecosystem Takes Shape.

Written by Kyle Ellicott