1 - DeFi & Tooling
Total Funding Pool
Up to $25,000
Lead Stewards
Binaya Tripathi & TheBigMac,follow them on X
How To Apply
Submit Application form
Stay Up To Date
DeFi and Tooling X Spaces will be held every Friday at 2 pm ET (11 am PST) from September 19 – October 24, 2025, hosted by @binaya_btc and @ETH_Lagartija on X. Attendance is highly recommended. Please come prepared with a 2-minute elevator pitch of your proposal.
Subscribe to Stacks Community Calendar
View all applications: coming soon!
About the DeFi and Tooling Track We are seeking bold, open-source projects that push the boundaries of decentralized finance and developer infrastructure on Stacks, leveraging Bitcoin’s security and sBTC for innovative, real-yield DeFi products and high-impact tooling. Projects should focus on enhancing liquidity, onboarding new users to Bitcoin DeFi, or creating tools that lower barriers for developers and users alike in high-impact areas of the ecosystem.
That could be DeFi dApps like lending protocols, DEXs, yield optimizers, or stablecoin mechanisms, or tooling like SDKs (e.g., Golang or JS for Stacks), auditing tools, wallet integrations, or performance optimizers tied to Bitcoin primitives.
Bonus: Projects that advance sBTC adoption & integrations, real yield DeFi products, DeFi onboarding, or tooling for high-impact areas of the ecosystem (e.g., developer workflows, DeFi infrastructure) are highly encouraged, aligning with Cohort 3’s High Impact Goals.
Requirements & Expectations
Applicants must submit proposals that include a plan for ecosystem impact, user or developer adoption, and measurable metrics (e.g., TVL, transaction volume, onboarding numbers for DeFi; tool usage, number of integrations for tooling).
Projects must have clear milestones and measurable deliverables.
Recipients must provide regular public updates to ensure transparency.
Project outcomes should benefit the wider Stacks and Bitcoin communities, driving DeFi innovation or developer productivity.
Review & Selection
Transparency: All applications will be publicly visible so the community can follow the process from start to finish.
Mentor Collaboration: Applications will be reviewed with mentors, leveraging their expertise in DeFi and Bitcoin L2 tooling.
Community Guidance: Mentors will join weekly X Spaces as speakers to share insights, answer questions, and offer advice to applicants during the application period.
Final Decisions: Funding decisions will be made openly and announced to the community on the published timeline.
Eligibility: Mentors are eligible to apply for funding, given that they are not evaluating their own application. Participation as a mentor does not exclude them from submitting their own project.
Important Dates
Applications Open → September 10, 2025
Application Deadline → October 8, 2025
Review Sessions → September 29 & October 10, 2025
Grantee Announcements → October 15, 2025
Cohort Ends → February 6, 2026
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