In this 12th Starknet community call, the discussion centers around the topic of decentralization, focusing on the medium to long-term goals for Starknet. The session features a detailed presentation by Ohad, a product manager at StarkWare, and covers the challenges and potential solutions for decentralizing Starknet.
Key Points:
1. Introduction:
– The community call starts with a brief overview, highlighting the importance of community involvement in the ongoing decentralization discussions.
– Ohad, the presenter, emphasizes that while Starknet is currently centralized, the goal is to decentralize both the sequencer and prover roles.
2. Decentralization Goals:
– The primary objectives of decentralization are discussed, including ensuring a permissionless system where anyone can participate, maintaining security, and achieving fast finality for transactions.
– Ohad presents a dilemma: while decentralization is crucial, it comes with trade-offs, particularly in balancing between fast finality, low overhead, and a high number of active participants.
3. Polls and Community Feedback:
– Ohad shares insights from recent polls conducted on Twitter, asking the community to weigh in on key aspects of decentralization. The feedback highlights differing opinions on what constitutes sufficient decentralization.
4. Technical Details:
– Two main design paths are discussed: one involving a longest chain-based consensus with volunteer provers, and another using a signature-based consensus where every sequencer must also be a prover.
– Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, a signature-based approach offers faster finality but may not scale as well with many participants, while a longest chain approach is more scalable but offers weaker finality guarantees.
5. Questions and Answers:
– The session includes a Q&A where topics such as the incentives for running a sequencer or prover, the potential slashing mechanisms for non-performance, and the feasibility of running provers on smaller hardware are discussed.
– The community also inquires about the potential for StarkWare to take a percentage of fees and how decentralized distribution of nodes and tokens will be ensured.
6. Call to Action:
– The call concludes with a reminder for the community to stay involved in the decentralization discussions by participating in forums and providing feedback.
The next community call is scheduled for two weeks, coinciding with a hackathon in Amsterdam, and will feature a more informal setup with live interactions from the event.
