Blockstack'due south STX might not be on every investor's radar, but the 72nd-ranked cryptocurrency by marketplace capitalization has been doing some serious work backside the scenes.

Blockstack (STX) 1-month chart. Source: Coin360.com

The company behind the token was founded in 2013 and raised money from Marriage Square Ventures, Naval Ravikant, Lux Majuscule and Digital Currency Group.

The initial coin offer actually happened in September 2019, and the fundraise was $28 million at $0.30 per token. At the time, the Blockstack ecosystem had over 165 applications in place and 78.3 one thousand thousand tokens were sold pre-ICO at $0.12 apiece.

The project aims to serve as a replacement for centralized cloud services that require user data storage, thereby building full-stack solutions for decentralized applications (DApps).

Despite having its own blockchain, about computing is done on client devices, allowing Stacks to calibration. A browser portal is all a user needs to get started using the Blockstack ecosystem.

According to Blockstack co-founder Muneeb Ali:

"Stacks ii.0 is a unique layer-ane blockchain that has a native bridge to Bitcoin."

In future, Ali said the team plans to "narrow our focus to building tools for developers that are building apps and smart contracts on Bitcoin."

Network fundamentals continue to ameliorate

In July 2019, Blockstack launched its kickoff token offer under the Securities and Exchange Commission'due south Reg A exemption. Investors' expectations at present lay on Stacks v2 launch, introducing a new smart contract language and a new consensus mechanism.

STX market capitalization (USD) and price (BTC). Source: CoinMarketCap

Regarding the token'southward value, since Nov, STX has gained 85%, and its market capitalization rose from $100 million to $188 million in nine weeks.

The quiet rally actually started in June, when Blockstack appear a joint open-source project to develop a smart contract language called Clarity. This partnership with Algorand aims to build something more reliable and predictable than current solutions available in the market.

On Sept. 24, the team successfully launched Stage 3 of the Stacks 2.0 testnet, including the proof-of-transfer (PoX) and "stacking" (staking) mechanisms. A calendar week later, Blockstack announced the integration of Chainlink equally its "preferred oracle solution."

The PoX mechanism allows independent STX miners to secure the network past pledging Bitcoin (BTC) as collateral. In exchange, those miners will have a run a risk to earn newly minted STX tokens.

On Oct. 9, just a couple of weeks after the launch, Blockstack announced its economical model behind Bitcoin rewards for staking STX tokens. In November, the company also appear a partnership with Staked, an infrastructure services provider for institutions seeking to earn rewards on their crypto assets.

Blockstack (STX) price vs. Tweet Book. Source: TheTie

Have notice of how the tweet activity usually peaks ahead of the upward price swing. A noticeable elevation happened on Nov. 10 when Coinbase's open-source tool Rosetta was integrated into Blockstack.

A few issues to consider ahead of the mainnet launch

More than recently, on Dec. 7, the visitor published a legal memorandum in which the firm argued that its Blockstack'south STX tokens will no longer qualify as securities.

After rebranding its parent company to Hiro, Blockstack announced its 2.0 mainnet lawmaking completion will occur by December. fifteen and has set a launch date for January. 14, 2021

All this goes to prove that there are a good number of primal drivers that support the stiff rally seen in STX, and it's worth noting that the token'south issuing schedule until Oct. 2021 is very ambitious.

This state of affairs exerts immense pressure level on the token price, equally noticed past the discrepancy in the market capitalization versus the BTC price nautical chart.

While there is a good amount of substance backside the recent positive price swing, investors need to watch out for the "buy the rumor, sell the news" dynamic as STX approaches the v2.0 launch date.