New York, NY, September 29, 2026 - Stacks Labs today announced that Muneeb Ali, founder of Stacks (STX), will become CEO of Stacks Labs, the largest contributor to the Stacks network, effective October 15. He takes the role as Stacks shifts focus to accelerating adoption following the successful launch of Bitcoin staking.
Recent business development has brought institutional partners including 21shares, UTXO Management, HashKey Cloud, Anchorage, and Fireblocks into Stacks' Bitcoin staking ecosystem. Stacks Labs will expand that work with new hires across business development, regional growth and brand.
Stacks is the leading layer for productive Bitcoin capital, with over 4,200 yielded in BTC. The first institutional Bitcoin staking bond sold out at launch, with 21shares, HashKey Cloud, and UTXO Management filling their maximum allocations.
The appointment formalizes a role Muneeb has increasingly taken on during the build phase of Bitcoin staking: working directly with institutional partners and sophisticated investors and leading key industry engagement. He remains the most recognizable voice for Stacks, setting out the vision for Bitcoin capital markets and a future where idle Bitcoin becomes productive capital.
The transition is further enabled by the strong operational build out overseen by Alex Miller, who served as interim CEO since Stacks Labs was established and now moves into an advisory role. "In launching Stacks Labs, my goal was to build the team, put the right structure in place, and ship Bitcoin Staking," said Alex Miller. "With that foundation built, I cannot think of a more exciting leader for the next growth phase of Stacks than our founder, Muneeb. Working with this team has been a privilege and I look forward to continuing to support the ecosystem as an advisor."
"Alex has taken the community's mandate to build a powerful, efficient core contributor and produced a Stacks Labs team that is shipping faster than ever and which has put Bitcoin staking, a unique, institutionally validated product successfully into the market." said Muneeb Ali. "The infrastructure is in place and institutions are ready to put their Bitcoin to work. My focus now is scaling adoption, from regional markets to the largest institutions in the world, and bringing Bitcoin staking to every holder of BTC."
Muneeb has been working on Bitcoin since 2013, which gives Stacks Labs a CEO whose conviction in growing Bitcoin was formed long before Bitcoin became an institutional asset. He founded Stacks in 2017, leading the first SEC-qualified token offering in 2019. His experience as founder of the network carries weight with custodians, asset managers, and exchanges operating in regulated markets.
He will focus on driving the resource alignment and hires necessary to further scale Stacks' visibility in the market while continuing to support key institutional relationships. The product roadmap and existing partnerships continue as planned, and Muneeb has already begun setting out his priorities for Stacks as he takes the helm.
At Korea Blockchain Week 2026, Muneeb unveiled three frontiers as major priorities for Stacks: capital markets, privacy, and post-quantum Bitcoin. He previewed early work across all three, with more details to be shared in the coming months.
Alongside these priorities, Stacks is expanding its presence in Korea, the Middle East, Hong Kong and other target regions through regional media partnerships and a growing program of institutional engagement and events. The goal in every market is the same: bringing Bitcoin Staking to institutions and everyday Bitcoin holders at scale. That work is already underway, with events across key regions including Korea Blockchain Week, Token 2049 Singapore and The Bridge NYC.
For more information, read the full announcement on the Stacks Blog.
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About Stacks
Stacks is the leading Bitcoin L2, enabling smart contracts and decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as a secure base layer. Stacks extends Bitcoin’s functionality without modifying Bitcoin itself, unlocking BTC for decentralized finance and other onchain applications.
Learn more at stacks.co.
About Stacks Labs
Stacks Labs is the operational hub of the Stacks ecosystem and the largest contributor to Stacks, the network that makes Bitcoin programmable, usable, and productive. Established through SIP-031, a community governance proposal, and funded by the Stacks Endowment, Stacks Labs leads core protocol engineering, developer relations, ecosystem growth, and strategic partnerships across the network. Its work includes sBTC and self-custodial Bitcoin staking, which lets holders earn native BTC on Bitcoin L1 without giving up custody.
Learn more at stackslabs.com.
