The following is Starknet_Digger‘s monthly roundup, first published on the Starknet research hub, which provides updates and developments from the Starknet ecosystem.
Highlights of the month
New Starknet roadmap
There’s growing concern over the steadily rising demand for Ethereum blobs, which now often exceeds the target blob rate. Two potential solutions exist to tackle this challenge:
- Wait for Ethereum to scale its blob capacity.
- Improve rollup data efficiency.
StarkWare has taken a proactive approach by introducing a new roadmap for the coming months, focused entirely on lowering fees for Starknet users and reducing its dependency on Ethereum blobs. Meanwhile, Cairo-native and Stwo remain on track for Q1-Q2 of 2025, bringing higher TPS, faster finality, and a significantly improved UX and DevX.
The first part of this new roadmap, Starknet v0.13.3, has already launched on mainnet, featuring a blob-gas mechanism that is 5x cheaper. The outcome? Noticeably lower gas fees for users. Even Vitalik himself highlighted this proactive strategy. Probably nothing.
Phase 1 of Starknet staking is now live on mainnet
Starknet is officially the first Layer 2 to release a permissionless staking mechanism directly on an L2. This means you can now easily become a validator or delegator by staking or delegating your STRK tokens. Here’s everything you need to know about it and why it’s a big deal.
On that note, Bitwise, one of the largest and best-known crypto managers in the U.S., has launched a validator service for STRK staking, making Starknet the first L2 where they’re expanding. Probably nothing again.
By the way, if you want to stake, delegate, or monitor STRK staking metrics, here’s a list of all projects supporting STRK staking.
Bitcoin cooking
The vision of Starknet scaling Bitcoin, in addition to Ethereum, gets closer every month. This month, three major developments have taken place in this project.
The first is the release of an official design for a trustless bridge between an L2 and Bitcoin (on Bitcoin Signet, with OP_CAT enabled). This means that as soon as (and if) OP_CAT is reintroduced on Bitcoin, Starknet will be able to easily connect to Bitcoin.
The second milestone is the release of a groundbreaking paper demonstrating that covenants (a key element of OP_CAT) are already possible on Bitcoin without requiring a soft fork. While the proposed solution is very expensive and likely economically unviable, the main takeaway is that OP_CAT wouldn’t introduce anything new or scary to Bitcoin, as covenants have existed all along.
Finally, a new optimization has been discovered, reducing opcode count from the current state-of-the-art ~296K to ~211K (~28% smaller) and lowering stack usage from 979 elements (just under Bitcoin’s 1000 limit) to 732-a much more manageable cost, representing an improvement of ~26%.
The second community vote for STRK holders
Another vote took place this month, this time on the termination of transaction Versions 0, 1, and 2.
In this proposal, Starknet’s main contributors suggested that the sequencer discontinue support for these transaction versions in an upcoming update. This change aims to prepare for the integration of the mempool and fee market, expected within the next 6-8 months. The vote resulted in an overwhelming majority in favor, with 99.9% voting “yes.”
More security measures
As Starknet prioritizes security above all else, following the release of the first phase of staking, Starknet has also introduced its Security Council and its composition.
Starknet 🤝 Travala
As a Starknet user, you can now book flights, hotels, and activities worldwide thanks to Travala’s integration with Starknet. Grinding is great, but remember to take a break sometimes, brothers.
Starknet ecosystem update
Opium metrics
The Starknet ecosystem has been in an up-only trend recently. Here are some key metrics:
- 30% of Ethereum outflows are moving to Starknet.
- Starknet’s TVL has surpassed $1B again, making it the sixth-largest network in this metric within the L2 sector.
- 600% user growth in just 6 weeks.
- Starknet and Base are the only L2s with positive net flows over the past month.
- L2Beat is now using a new activity tracking metric, which is much better than traditional TPS: UOPS. This new measure accounts for Starknet’s multicall feature, where a single transaction bundles multiple user operations. Starknet is currently ranked second in terms of the UOPS/TPS ratio.
Overall, sentiment around Starknet is shifting rapidly in a positive direction.
Braavos in full send mode
Braavos has shipped 3 main features this month.
The first is a great UX improvement for mobile users: You can now send, swap, and invest in DeFi strategies available in the wallet for 0 gas fees.
Speaking of strategies, you don’t need to leave the wallet to invest in Nimbora’s great DeFi strategies; you can now do it directly from your Braavos wallet.
Finally, say goodbye forever to pop-ups with Braavos Side Panel, which allows you to have Braavos already open and ready to interact in your browser.
Argent Card
Do you want to spend your Starknet assets directly in real life? Soon, you’ll be able to, with the Argent card—allowing you to use your Starknet assets for daily needs. It will function as a true debit card.
Who needs banks when Starknet will soon meet all your financial needs?
Ekubo’s new UI interface
Ekubo’s main focus over the past month has been to greatly improve its UX for users.
Permissionless pools finally available on Vesu
You can now create your own lending/borrowing pools on Vesu, giving you the ability to do more with all of your assets. The first pools created by a third party come from none other than Re7Capital, a risk curator and DeFi expert.
To read the rest of Starknet_Digger’s report, view it on the Starknet research hub here.
