Stacks is essentially a protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. You see, Bitcoin is the OG blockchain, the Sugar Hill Gang, if you will. And while it is still the most popular — and highest valued — cryptocurrency, it has not come anywhere close to realizing its potential. Bitcoin was designed as a currency, but the inventor (Satoshi) knew it had potential for a lot more. As to why he did not “unleash” the potential, we may never know.
Unleashing blockchain’s potential was something that Ethereum did. It gave us the ability to build smart-contracts and DApps. It also gave us DeFi, NFTs, ICOs, and -of course- a lot of shady sh*tcoins. But essentially, it helped change blockchain from being just a means to record financial transactions, to a whole lot more.
Now, Stacks wants to do the same thing to the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin is the most secure and mature blockchain in the world, and Stacks would help unlock and release that potential to the whole world. As to what we would get, we cannot know yet. Obviously, we’d get DApps,DeFis, NFTs, FTs, and the normal stuff we see on Ether/Ether based blockchains. But I can bet you. we’ll see a whole lot of innovations based on it. Because if there’s anything humans have proven they are great at, it’s using new and powerful tools in innovative ways. And Stacks is a new tool that is giving the world access to great power and possibility.