More than two-thirds of the existing Bitcoin layer-2 projects will cease to exist within three years as their initial excitement fades, said Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks.
“The honeymoon phase [for Bitcoin L2s] is a little bit over,” Ali said in an interview with Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025, while sharing updates on Stacks — a Bitcoin L2 originally launched as Blockstack in 2013.
Stacks recently completed a major network upgrade, Nakamoto, which significantly improved user experience, Ali said, adding: “And the second big thing is that now Stacks is secured by 100% of Bitcoin hash.”
Muneeb Ali, Stacks co-founder at Consensus 2025. Source: Cointelegraph
As a result, users enjoy faster confirmations on the Bitcoin L2 while backed by the Bitcoin network’s inherent security.
Speaking generally about the Bitcoin L2 ecosystem, Ali said that most projects have started to realize that “the market is super hard.”
Building beyond the Bitcoin L2 hype
According to Ali, not all projects are mission-driven or dedicated enough to keep building beyond the initial hype. “My guess would be less than one-third (of all Bitcoin projects) will be around,” he said.
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Still, he said that a handful of projects like Stacks and Babylon would continue to build and thrive in this market:
“One thing I’ve noticed is that the entire area is a little suppressed right now in terms of trading volumes and market caps, but Stacks’ relative position compared to other projects has actually increased because it’s considered more like a blue chip project.”
He said that investors tend to go for blue chip projects — anticipated to last for at least five more years — when they want to be less risk-averse.
Bitcoin attracts external investments
Additionally, Ali said he expects the market to shift toward Bitcoin (BTC) as other popular layer-1 chains, such as Ethereum and Solana, decline.
He said that Bitcoin has capital inflow from outside of the industry — like spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) — whereas a lot of other projects are fighting over the same capital base:
“If memecoins are becoming trendy, capital will come out of L1 infrastructure projects and rotate into the memecoins, but it’s the same capital that’s cycling into different categories. Whereas Bitcoin is probably the only asset that has net new buyers.”
Showing strong confidence in Bitcoin, Ali predicted that BTC price will never go below $50,000 as data from the last 10 years will entice large hedge funds to follow the models and halving patterns — “almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
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