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Stacks Dev Digest: New Ways to Earn & Build, Useful Upgrades

What’s new, what pays, and what to build next.

January 16, 2026

Welcome back, Stacks builders 👾

Last year we secured the spot of one of the fastest growing dev ecosystems. Let’s keep it going. If you want to get paid to build on Stacks, keep reading.

What Happened in December

Stacks x Talent Protocol

Hundreds of Stacks developers have been shipping code and earning rewards by building on the latest Stacks upgrades 🤑

Here’s the results from our 3 week December challenge:

  • 726 builders participated

  • 25,500STX rewarded to 50+ builders

  • 2,002 new deployments across mainnet and testnet

Top builders each week 👉

If you’re not in yet, you’re missing paid opportunities to build what’s actually shipping. Next Challenge runs Jan 19 – Feb 1.

Week 1: Clarity 4

Week 2: Chainhook

Week 3: WalletConnect

Stacks Ascent 2025

  • 75 builders graduated Ascent

  • Top projects advanced to the Hacker House at DevConnect in Buenos Aires 🇦🇷 and secured grants

In 2026, Stacks Ascent will move to invite only. There will be a sharper focus on turning hackathon MVPs into fundable startups.

Jump In Now

Stackers on Skool 🤓
Your new home base for everything DevRel. Stackers will become the hub for Ascent, Builder Challenges, Hackathons, and The Arena: a new monthly, community-voted competition. Invites to Stackers are rolling out now.

USDCx Builder Challenge: $3,000 Prize 💰
From Jan 19–25, build an integration using USDCx bridging from Ethereum to Stacks on DoraHacks. Winner takes all.

Earn Builder Rewards on Talent Protocol: 25,300STX 🟠
From Jan 19 – Feb 1 ship real work and get rewarded for what you build, not how much you tweet.

Coming up soon
👾 DoraHacks February Challenge
👾 Stacks x Talent February Builder Rewards
👾 Buidl Battle (Sign ups Open)

February Events

Pitch Your Buidl

An IRL builder pitch event co-hosted with Talent Protocol to vibe code, ship ideas, meet other builders, and turn early projects into real Stacks builds.

First up, we’re live in:

📍 Lisbon
🗓 February 12 @ 4PM-7:30PM
💰 $2k up for grabs

Followed by our second event at:

📍 ETH Denver
🗓 February 18 @ 11AM-2PM
💰 $2k up for grabs

Fresh From the Docs

RPC API Playground
Test API calls directly in the docs against mainnet, testnet, or your local node.
→ Try it 

USDCx Bridging Guide
Step-by-step integration for moving USDC between Ethereum and Stacks via Circle’s xReserve.
→ Read it 

Clarinet: Dead Code Detection
Catch unreachable functions and impossible execution paths before deployment.
Build smaller, safer Clarity contracts with clearer logic.
→ View it

x402 on Stacks (Community Project)
HTTP-level payments for APIs and AI agents. Pay per request with STX or sBTC. Built by Hacker House alum Tony. Over 10k transactions so far 👀
→ Check it 

Everything this month is designed to compound. Start with one event, one build, take the next step, and keep building forward.

Don’t want to miss anything? Follow the @StacksDevs account on X, with content tailored to Stacks developers. Follow the account here 👈️