StarkNet - Ethereum's Scaling Solution

StarkNet is scaling Ethereum in 2022

Welcome to the alpha please newsletter. I curate alpha for you. That’s it; that’s the newsletter.

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This alpha please newsletter is about StarkNet. It’s fast becoming one of the most exciting solutions for scaling Ethereum.

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What’s to come?

• Definitions

• What is StarkNet

• The Story so far

• Overviews of StarkNet

• Starknet Ecosystem

• How Decentralised will StarkNet be?

• Why should you care about StarkNet?

• When can you move from ETH L1 to Starknet?

• Wen Token? (don’t you dare just skip to this bit)

• Key Resources

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Definitions

There are some complicated tech underpinning StarkNet, so I will try and reduce everything down to the basics. (I am not smart btw, so this is to help me.)

A few “Explain it like I’m five” definitions:

ZK Rollups?

A ZK-Rollup is a smart contract that takes hundreds of transactions off the main blockchain and bundles them into a single transaction. It then sends a validity proof back to the main blockchain.

ZK rollups allow for the validation of blocks in a cheaper, faster, and privacy-focused manner, thereby allowing builders and developers to use Ethereum at scale.

The ZK bit?

In cryptography, zero knowledge proofs let you convince me that you know something, or have done something, without revealing to me what your secret thing was.

What is ZK-STARK?

STARK is a proof system. ZK-STARKs, invented by StarkWare (a company), enforce the integrity and privacy of computations on blockchains, using novel cryptographic proofs and modern algebra.

STARKs allow the underlying blockchains to move transactions to an off-chain prover, who then uses an on-chain verifier to verify these transactions.

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Firstly, StarkWare is a company with two products:

• StarkEx

• Starknet

I am going to focus on StarkNet, but a quick TLDR on StarkEx.

What is StarkEx?

StarkEx is a standalone, customizable Layer-2 SAAS (Software as a Service) for exchanges that uses the STARK proof system in order to provide massive scaling.

Last week StarkEx did roughly 33% more transactions than Ethereum layer one.

It has been used by projects such as dydx, Sorare and Immutablex.

For context:

dydx generated $60 million in revenue over the last 30 days. The second most of any protocol in crypto (data from Token Terminal).

Sorare, the European fantasy soccer and NFT collectible platform, raised $680 million in their Series. It was a record for any Series B raise by a European company.

Immutablex, the first Layer 2 for NFTs on Ethereum, just got valued at $2.5 billion.

Big boy numbers.

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What is StarkNet?

StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as a “ZK-Rollup”). It operates as an L2 network over Ethereum, enabling any dApp to achieve unlimited scale for its computation –  without compromising Ethereum’s composability and security, thanks to StarkNet’s reliance on the safest and most scalable cryptographic proof system – STARK

Ok, there are lots of big words here.

But basically:

StarkNet is a general-purpose network where you can write and deploy your own smart contracts, interact with other contracts, and so on, just like Ethereum.

And let me just highlight this bit again because it’s ultimately why I wrote this newsletter:

“StarkNet allows any dApp to achieve unlimited scale for its computation, without compromising Ethereum’s composability and security.”

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The StarkNet Story So Far

StarkNet is currently in Alpha

StarkNet Alpha was released to public testnet in June, and to Mainnet in November. By the time of the Mainnet deployment, StarkNet was already delivering general computation in an Ethereum-like state, which was widely thought to be years away.

While StarkNet currently delivers the compression magic they promised, at the moment, it’s far from being able to do so for enough dApps with enough throughput, and this may prove a source of frustration for developers in the short term.

The Network’s performance is now the top priority for development.

StarkNet say they now have hundreds of developers building on StarkNet, tens of dApps, and more than a dozen external teams developing tooling and infrastructure for the StarkNet ecosystem.

StarkWare to be valued at $6B

StarkWare raised $50 million in a Series C funding round back in November, and that put the firm’s valuation at $2 billion.

They are now looking to raise $100 million and triple their valuation to $6 billion. For context, ConsenSys, the leading Ethereum software company, was recently valued at $7 Billion.

Crypto Briefing @Crypto_Briefing

.@StarkWareLtd is reportedly looking to raise $100 million in its latest funding round.

cryptobriefing.comEthereum Layer 2 Developer StarkWare Looking to Triple Valuation to $6BEthereum Layer 2 developer StarkWare is reportedly raising $100 million in an ongoing funding round at a $6 billion valuation.

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The StarkWare Team

Giga brains. The undisputed experts in ZK technology.

Commentary on the team from Supercycled.

Supercycled @_supercycled

8/ Team & beginnings: @StarkWareLtd : Beginning in May 2018. The team is made up of world class cryptographers and scientists. Core guys are ex Zcash chief scientists and have pioneered innovation in the zk field for years. Lots of galaxy brain academic papers that they are..

Supercycled @_supercycled

9/ .. turning into a real world product with Starknet. Undoubtedly the most renowned team in this game @zksync : Beginning in dec 2019. There is actually a "second best" in the zk field and it's Matter Labs team which is building ZkSync. Co founded by @gluk64, I couldn't find..

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Great overviews of StarkNet

A few overview threads that are easy to digest.

Simao is coming in hot from ETH Denver and he’s got a very digestable breakdown of StarkNet.

Simão Cruz @SimaoCCruz

StarkNet 101: What it is, how it works, and why it will blow your mind. (full credit to @HenriLieutaud on a great workshop at @ethdenver) Here’s an attempt at summarizing a two-hour workshop in a single thread 👇🧵 (1/14)

A couple more deep dives from anons.

MT @mt_1466

1/ Yesterday, I highlighted zkSync. So it only makes sense that I do the same for @StarkWareLtd and their #Ethereum rollup solutions #L222 #StarkEx and #StarkNet Another deep-dive thread into one of the projects changing the scaling world 🧵...

This dropped very recently from OxKanna.

Kanna |✨Cutest dev on starknet @0xKanna

🧵 Starknet Thesis 🧵 L2 Holy Grail. High Throughput and Scalable permissionless Rollup @HenriLieutaud @GuthL @odin_free @Swagtimus @EliBenSasson @gakonst 1/x

The founders of Starkware spoke on the Delphi Podcast last October and delphi intern broke it down into these very handy notes.

(Delphi, Intern) @delphiintern

Notes from the @PodcastDelphi with @StarkWareLtd founders Eli and Uri on: ⁃Low transaction costs on ZK-Rollups 💵 ⁃StarkWare powered gaming 👾 ⁃StarkNet’s dApp ecosystem 🌐 And much more! @Shaughnessy119 <> @mediodelphi <> @EliBenSasson <> @ukolodny

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Cairo

Cairo is the programming language for Starknet. It was developed in-house by StarkWare. It’s the first production-grade Turing complete von-Neumann verifier on Ethereum.

There is tooling to translate Solidity smart contracts into Cairo.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

@enthusiast761 Cairo is our native language. It is optimized for proofs and tailored for L2. We also have tools for translating Solidity into Cairo (Warp). While Cairo is new, it comes with a lot of benefits.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Cairo is not that hard to learn and a promising skill in your toolbox. This tutorial will show you how to write and implement a StarkNet contract: cairo-lang.org/docs/hello_sta… and

starknet.ioRecorded Tutorials - StarkNetStarkNet recorded tutorials and workshops will guide you in building your StarkNet contract

Mallows contrasts Cairo with Solidity (Ethereum’s programming language).

Mallows @mallowsxyz

18/ while solidity apps are built from the ground up for a gas-optimized environment, Cairo apps are a natural fit for a much larger set of compute-heavy functionality that it doesn't make sense to code in Solidity in the first place.

Mallows @mallowsxyz

19/ For example, we may write a video game or simulation in Cairo, even though such apps, if written in solidity, would consume more gas than all the L1 gas on ethereum. But, by the magic of StarkNet & Cairo, we can run these big programs while securing/settling them on ethereum.

Mallows @mallowsxyz

20/ In short, our take on solidity vs. cairo is that we think developers will want to write apps in Cairo, and that's why our homebrew slogan for StarkNet is, "Come for the Solidity support & EVM compatibility, stay for the Cairo" :)

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StarkNet ecosystem

Somehow Odin is managing to keep up with all of the projects building on StarkNet.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Frens, here's the latest ecosystem map for StarkNet It's been updated with 15 new projects and services. Don't worry about me.

You can view this in detail on StarkNet’s new ecosystem’s website.

StarkNet Ecosystem @StarkNetEco

Dear #StarkNet Fam 💘 We launched starknet-ecosystem.com 4 days ago and we already received a lot of attention! +50 projects listed on the Dashboard +15 PR for adding projects +3 translations provided (French, Turkish, Italian) Community implication is crazy! @StarkWareLtd

starknet-ecosystem.comStarkNet EcosystemExplore all projects building & running on StarkNet L2

Here is an up to date list of projects you can test today.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Far beyond the moon, a new star rises. 🔆🔆 StarkNet 🔆🔆 The following is an update on what you can try today! 25 projects to test! It's time for another spoonfeddorrr 🧵👇

AAVE holders have recently voted to deploy their v3 on StarkNet.

Ernesto @eboadom

1/3 The Aave governance proposal to approve a joint development between Aave and Starknet communities has been executed, after approval by the Aave community. What does this mean? ⬇️

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Aave is heading to StarkNet !! Fren, this is a big deal, and today you can make it happen. Why is it so pivotal for Aave and StarkNet? Time for a thread 🧵 1/6

Argent X has the only browser compatible wallet so far for StarkNet & it has already hit a nice milestone.

Argent @argentHQ

The StarkNet ecosystem is exploding Argent X has already hit 40K users. Doubled in a couple of weeks.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Scaling Ethereum is not coming, it's already here. StarkNet's ecosystem is growing exponentially. Our first bridge will be deployed within four weeks and the game will begin. Thanks, fam, it's amazing. https://t.co/lRfPM42lFG

Sneak peek at the Dope Wars game building on StarkNet.

Dope Wars @TheDopeWars

This Weeks Sneaks Tunes from: @unkleofficial $Paper $Dope

And another game building on StarkNet.

Realms (for Adventurers) @LootRealms

BTS of an OG 2D Realm being transformed into its 3D high-fidelity form 🗺️ In the future, Lords & Ladies will be able to explore their high-fidelity Realms in scale on #StarkNet @StarkWareLtd 👀 These height maps are CC0 and free for buidlers to use as they please.

A shower thought.

polynya @epolynya

I believe gaming on StarkNet (& other zkRs) might just be the blockchain industry's ultimate trojan horse to mass adoption. Let's support these pioneers and future legends.

Uri Kolodny ✨ @ukolodny

. @TheDopeWars led by master @eth_worm, @influenceth, @briqs_, @guiltygyoza. The first teams building games on #StarkNet. 1-5 devs (mean: 2). Remember these pioneers when #StarkNet gaming is ubiquitous.

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How Decentralised will StarkNet be?

It will be completely decentralised and they are currently working on that model. Here is the first draft.

Ohad Barta @OhadBarta

I asked people at StarkWare for their first association of what StarkNet is, and got: Happiness The future Proofs L3 @bbrandtom How will we reach consensus? A first draft for decentralisation method is out! Your opinions and associations are welcome!

community.starknet.ioDecentralized Consensus Potential Candidate (Longest Chain)Please, feel very free to offer variants, analyze potential attacks, or otherwise give feedback! Building StarkNet’s algorithms with you and for you is very important for us!

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Why should you care about StarkNet?

I know this is what you are really after. Let’s ask the the CT hive mind.

The Co-founder of Paradigm and partner at Sequioa added a lot of zeros…

Matt Huang @matthuang

StarkNet is live! This will be a key part of how Ethereum scales 1000x, and eventually 1000000x…

StarkWare @StarkWareLtd

StarkNet Alpha✨ First step on Mainnet ✅ https://t.co/wMKS3QrfqQ https://t.co/s0mr3Tr72R

Taken from Simao’s excellent thread.

Simão Cruz @SimaoCCruz

The goal here is to do ten times what you do on Ethereum by the end of this quarter, but 100 times cheaper. Starkware will be running the prover themselves and paying for it. At the end of the year, they want to decentralize it. (12/14)

Simão Cruz @SimaoCCruz

If Starkware pulls it off, they will be able to do things we couldn’t dream of on Ethereum, with any centralized party scaling their machine to do a lot more things. (13/14)

Incredible gas savings.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

So... StarkNet is a blockchain? No Ser, StarkNet is a compression service. The ZipFile for Ethereum transactions. 500'000 gas becomes 100 gas cheap, green, fast & secure.

odin free ✨🐺 @odin_free

Why is starknet a game-changer? A complex transaction with collateral would cost 600,000 gas per tx on dydx Ethereum L1 - with STARKs it costs around 500 gas. It also gets much cheaper if you increase the batch size and the settlement period.

Hot take: Liron from StarkNet goes as far to say that it’s a scalable L1, not an L2.

Liron Hayman ✨ @HaymanLiron

Personal opinion: stop talking about #StarkNet as an Ethereum L2. It's a *truly* scalable L1 (when comparing apples with apples) which derives security from #ethereum iykyk

Very strong endorsement from Delphi Digital.

José Maria Macedo @ZeMariaMacedo

A year ago when we started building stuff at Labs, we chose @terra_money and @solana as the two ecosystems we were most bullish on If we were starting Labs now, we'd be building on Starknet If you're building something cool on there, HMU

When Epolynya makes statements like this you should take note…

polynya @epolynya

@ToTheLoom @HaymanLiron I'm amazed at just how much is happening on StarkNet in a week following Swagtimus' newsletter, and there's more every week. I think I might have been pessimistic about my expectations - I have never seen a crypto project in alpha gain such rapid adoption by developers.

A nice data point from Diogo, but acknowledges Cairo is not as straight forward for devs.

Diogo Almeida @diogo_balmeida

At @EthereumDenver, when speaking about L2s, 80% of the builders mentioned @StarkWareLtd and believed that StarkNet was a top solution. However, Cairo is still one of the biggest barriers for devs to build on StarkNet.

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When can you move from ETH L1 to Starknet?

Pretty soon. Orbiter have the first external bridge on test net currently.

Orbiter Finance 🛸 @Orbiter_Finance

🛸Good news! Orbiter now supports StrakNet on Goerli, and you can choose StarkNet on Orbiter.Finance and bridge StarkNet in testnet! Thanks for the help from @StarkWareLtd!

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But wen token?

You will find out when StarkWare tells you, anon.

Louis Guthmann 🦇🔊✨ | 🐺-Maxi @GuthL

Your week-end friendly reminder that @StarkWareLtd and #StarkNet has no token and if (big if) we were to make one, you would be all aware...

The token will likely come once the decentralisation of StarkNet begins.

boqdan.eth @boqdan_

And soon after will follow the actual decentralization of the StarkNet network of nodes (provers/state providers/sequencers), including economic incentives, in case someone's asking wen token 😅 5/n

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Key resources to learn more:

A one stop shop of everything to do with StarkNet.

Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst

After crowdsourcing some info to make sure I was not missing anything, I'm excited to share "Awesome StarkNet", a curated list of awesome @StarkWareLtd / @CairoLang / StarkNet resources, libraries, tools and more. PRs for additional content are welcome!

github.comGitHub - gakonst/awesome-starknet: A curated list of awesome StarkNet resources, libraries, tools and moreA curated list of awesome StarkNet resources, libraries, tools and more - GitHub - gakonst/awesome-starknet: A curated list of awesome StarkNet resources, libraries, tools and more

For weekly updates nothing beats Swagtimus Prime’s StarkNet newsletter.

StarkNet Roundup #8

Follow Tom to get the latest monthly StarkNet updates.

Tom Brand ✨ @bbrandtom

✨ StarkNet Monthly Update ✨ StarkNet is growing, and it becomes harder to keep everyone updated. We are trying a new thing - sharing a monthly update of StarkNet's status and plans ahead. See the full update here - tinyurl.com/ya3rfa4h 🧵 👇🏾 1/7

tinyurl.comStarkNet Monthly Update FebruaryHi all, trying a new thing here - a monthly update on StarkNet’s development. The goal is to give a monthly insight into upcoming versions and releases. StarkNet Alpha versions - V0.7.1 - released two weeks ago on Goerli testnet and last week on Mainnet. Seems to be working smoothly so far.…

Good intro podcast with Hasu.

Udi jumped on Twitter Spaces very recently with the co-founder and Head of Product at Starkware. It’s a great listen.

udiverse 39 @udiWertheimer

udiverse is live! learn about rollups and zero knowledge (zero knowledge is my default state) https://t.co/jANZJHNQhp

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It really be like that.

pinching Swagtimus Prime’s meme

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And that’s your alpha.

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We launched a Discord channel

It’s a space for all general crypto chat and will almost certainly contain alpha. It’s free to join, just click the image.

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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Do your own research.

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