Muneeb Ali (Co-founder of Stacks)
In this episode, I spoke to Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks — a Bitcoin L2 that aims to make BTC more programmable and scalable. At USV, we originally backed Muneeb and his co-founder Ryan Shea back in 2014. Our shared hypothesis was that Bitcoin had the potential to impact more than just finance—it could be a new foundation for the internet itself. Of course, this idea wasn't as obvious back then. In my conversation with Muneeb, we used his personal and professional journey to trace the origins of this idea—starting with his PhD in computer science at Princeton leading up to his fascination with Bitcoin and work on Stacks today. Muneeb offers insights into the technical and cultural challenges of innovating within the Bitcoin ecosystem, and shares his vision of a future where BTC serves as the foundation for the next generation of decentralized applications. Chapters: 00:00:00 Cold open00:01:35 Muneeb's background in computer science and peer-to-peer systems research00:06:29 Transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship00:09:00 The "aha moment" - Bitcoin solving the global state problem00:11:16 Evolution of Muneeb's vision for Bitcoin00:15:00 Comparing different approaches to blockchain architecture00:22:48 The current landscape of blockchain ecosystems00:26:29 Challenges of building on Bitcoin and navigating community resistance00:29:43 The Stacks Nakamoto upgrade and its potential impact00:32:44 Decentralization versus user experience00:37:38 Future vision for Bitcoin L2s and a decentralized internet—————The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.