Ryder to Become a Signer for the Upcoming Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade

Ryder, a crypto hardware wallet, announced on Thursday, January 11th, that it will operate Stacking provider FAST Pool and become a Signer for the upcoming Stacks Nakamoto upgrade.

In a press release shared with Cryptowisser, the team said this latest development will help Stacks take another step forward as a complete Bitcoin L2. Signers play a key role in the next Stacks upgrade scheduled around the Bitcoin halving, enabling permissionless movement of BTC onto the Stacks Layer through its open network.

Ryder explained that Stack Signers play a key role in sBTC, enabling the movement of BTC to and from the L2 by validating (or ‘signing’) Stacks blocks and processing transactions. 

The integration will see Ryder help secure the network and enable the next generation of scalable Bitcoin applications. 

FAST Pool is a self-service pool, that enables anyone to easily stack STX and become a signer for Stacks blocks and contribute to processing sBTC in a decentralized way. 

Ryder added that by operating FAST Pool and becoming a signer for Stacks, it has become easier for the Bitcoin community to participate in decentralizing the Bitcoin L2.

To become part of verifying the movement of BTC from and to the L2, someone can simply stack $STX via FAST Pool and earn rewards in BTC while doing so. FAST Pool is one of the largest stacking services in the Stacks ecosystem, boasting a total TVL of 43 million STX.

Signers are important to the network’s operation as they ‘sign’ deposit and withdrawal transactions for sBTC, a decentralized 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset that helps further unlock Bitcoin as a programmable asset.

While commenting on this latest development, Louise Ivan, CEO at Ryder, said,

“Making life easier and safer for users is what we do at Ryder; as an industry, we need to continue to improve usability and accessibility so that networks can become more decentralized and robust. With this in mind, we’re incredibly excited to bring FAST pool into the Ryder family. With the Ryder wallet, we will be able to offer the thousands of users and their millions in capital an additional layer of protection on top of the unique security properties of the Stacks layer. We believe this is the beginning of an age where Bitcoin becomes truly for everyone.” 

Ryder is a hardware crypto wallet that introduces the Industry’s first TapSafe recovery system, replacing the complicated seed-phrase process with a simple combination of hardware, mobile application and social circle. 

Meanwhile, Stacks is a Bitcoin L2 that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as a secure base layer. The 2024 Nakamoto and sBTC releases will bring faster speeds and transactions backed by 100% Bitcoin finality. ‍Stacks is the current leading Bitcoin L2 by developer traction and market cap and is poised to help unlock Bitcoin and its $500B in passive capital as a fully programmable, productive asset.