NFTs gained popularity on the Bitcoin-backed Stacks network last year, surprising many in the crypto sector. The booming market gave a potential chance for the designers of Satoshibles, an Ethereum-based NFT profile picture project, to properly integrate Bitcoin.
Through Stacks, Satoshibles announced the establishment of the first NFT bridge between Ethereum and Bitcoin. With StacksBridge, a cross-chain transfer service that allows holders to ship their NFTs between the two chains, Satoshibles holders will be able to pick which blockchain their NFTs will live on. In the last six months, Bitcoin NFTs have emerged, allowing for a new class of NFT holders and the production of NFTs with Bitcoin’s security features.
After all, Satoshibles is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the eponymous founder of Bitcoin. The images, created by Moroccan artist Ayyoub Bouzerda, are all based on a photograph of Dorian Nakamoto, the man who became a Bitcoiner meme after Newsweek claimed he was Satoshi in 2014.
Satoshibles, being one of the major Bitcoin-related NFTs now on Ethereum, set out early on to allow its holders to trade or hold their NFT on Bitcoin using Stacks, a blockchain that introduces smart contracts and apps to the Bitcoin platform. StacksBridge was created with the following goals in mind:
- Let holders move NFTs to Stacks or back to Ethereum.
- Ensure NFTs are only active on one blockchain at a time.
- Allow liquidity locked on Ethereum NFTs to flow into the Stacks ecosystem.
- Drive demand for STX while increasing the number of active NFT holders.
- Encourage users to store their NFT on the world’s most secure blockchain.
“The main purpose of the bridge is to ultimately give control to the holder, allowing them to freely choose where they want to hold or trade their assets. We can benefit from the low fees on Stacks and build amazing utility there for our holders.” shared Brian Laughlan, the creator of Satoshibles. “This bridge is going to allow us to expand and diversify our community to accommodate both Bitcoiners and Ethereum enthusiasts.”
Users must login using a MetaMask wallet for Ethereum and a Hiro wallet for Stacks in order to link between the two bridges. Bitcoin Satoshibles will be marked with a Bitcoin watermark in the backdrop instead of the typical plain color background found on Ethereum to highlight that each NFT is active on a specific chain when bridged across.
“As the first NFT collection ever to span across both Ethereum and Bitcoin, this is a remarkable milestone for Satoshibles that demonstrates how Stacks can deliver Bitcoins value to other ecosystems,” said Louise Ivan Payawal, Growth Lead at the Stacks Foundation. “I can see a future where NFT holders use the Bitcoin blockchain to secure their NFTs like a vault and bridge their NFTs over to Ethereum to access the metaverse and play in virtual lands like The Sandbox.”
StacksBridge is open to all Satoshibles holders. Satoshibles expects the project-agnostic service to grow to the point where it can be used by projects other than Ethereum.