The following is Starknet_Digger‘s monthly roundup, first published on the Starknet research hub, which provides updates and developments from the Starknet ecosystem.

Starknet Brother

I couldn’t start this monthly roundup without mentioning Starknet Brother, the new trending meme(coin) on Starknet. Quick recap:

  • Starknet broke all records this Tuesday (more on that below).
  • Bankless co-founder @RyanSAdams celebrated this event—without mentioning Starknet.
  • Odin, StarkWare’s Ecosystem Lead, asked him to give credit to Starknet with a simple “Starknet Brother.”
  • Ryan replied with a “Starknet Brother.”
  • Vitalik answered him with a Starknet Brother meme.
  • The community took it further by creating a memecoin: @StarknetBro (NFA, I’m a bag holder).
  • Phantom, the leading Solana wallet, joined the party
  • The rest will be history.

If you’ve seen Starknet Brothers popping up all over X lately, now you know the origin. Join us on X and become a Starknet Brother (or Sister btw) too. 🥸

Starknet: Setting new standards in the L2 space

One of the key takeaways this month is that Starknet upped its performance. It’s now become a real advantage for projects and builders. The Flippy Flop campaign, led by Cartridge, showcased this shift.

In terms of performance, it’s simple: on mainnet, Starknet achieved:

  • Peak TPS: 857
  • Sustained TPS throughout a whole day: 127, making Starknet the leading Layer 2 by this metric, ahead of Base (80 TPS) and far surpassing zkSync (62 TPS)
  • Total transactions: 9,726,562
  • Total cost: $27,385
  • Average gas fee per transaction: $0.0028

If you want to dive deeper into these metrics, see the official Dune dashboard. And know that even more performance improvements are coming over time as StarkWare and the ecosystem bring further optimizations. You can find the planned ones here.

On the UX front, to participate in the Flippy Flop campaign on Starknet, users didn’t need to:

  • Create a crypto wallet or keep a seed phrase, thanks to Passkeys
  • Bridge to Starknet or pay gas fees, thanks to Paymaster
  • Sign transactions, thanks to Session Keys

ELI5 why this is big:

Starknet ecosystem expansion

Having top-tier tech is fantastic, but a dynamic and growing ecosystem leveraging that tech is even better. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing on Starknet.

2023 vs. 2024 ecosystem:

And who’s building all these dApps and projects? Developers. So we need more devs over time to keep building for users. Here’s the bullish news: Starknet devs are locked in and growing steadily.

  • The total number of active Cairo developers on GitHub reached its highest monthly count since January 2023 (see Figure 1).
  • More and more developers are exploring Starknet (see Figure 2).
  • 74% of developers stay active on Starknet 12 months after their first contribution (see Figure 3).

EVM compatibility is coming to Starknet

Kakarot aims to make Starknet the first DualVM validity rollup, enabling different smart contract languages to interact on Starknet—both CairoVM and EVM languages. This expansion will grow the developer pool from around 1,500 (Cairo) to over 20,000 (Cairo + EVM). This is massive and means more developers can build on Starknet, EVM projects can launch on Starknet more easily (with the same developer experience as on Scroll), and Starknet’s ecosystem will be much more accessible.

One of the biggest impacts is that major bridges (such as LayerZero-powered, Wormhole-powered, Jumper/Lifi, Bungee, Across, and others) will be able to easily integrate Starknet. Currently, no major bridge is connected to Starknet, but I anticipate this will change a few months after Kakarot’s mainnet launch (scheduled for December, or early Q1 2025 at the latest, already live on testnet).

Most importantly, EVM wallets will be able to interact with Starknet dApps, which is a game changer for the UX-no need to install a separate wallet to join Starknet. While Starknet’s native wallets objectively outperform EVM wallets by far, many users prefer to avoid managing multiple wallets. Soon, they’ll be able to use their existing EVM wallets to interact on Starknet. This means millions of EVM users (and even Solana users, thanks to Phantom, the leading Solana wallet with EVM integration) and $80 billion in TVL could flow into Starknet more easily. So no more friction to join the Starknet Brothers.

Source 1 – Source 2

 

Starknet accessibility: Only upward

While waiting for Kakarot, Starknet’s accessibility keeps improving on its own.

Three main updates here. First, StarkGate v2.0 is now live on Mainnet, offering more options and a MUCH better UX. As a reminder, StarkGate is Starknet’s official crypto bridge. The previous UX was basic, and this new version is much improved, making the bridging experience far more pleasant (and imagine how much smoother it’ll be with the EVM wallets that Kakarot will bring 👀).

Secondly, Keplr wallet, the leading wallet in the Cosmos ecosystem, has integrated the Starknet network. This means the entire Cosmos community can now interact with Starknet using their favorite wallet. I also know that StarkWare is working in partnership with Informal Systems to integrate Starknet into IBC, facilitating interoperability between Cosmos chains and Starknet. So this is, again, fucking big.

Currently, you can use your Keplr wallet on LayerSwap (bridge), AVNU (DEX aggregator), Nostra (money market), and Carmine (options protocol). I believe all Starknet dApps will integrate it within a few weeks.

Finally, thanks to Pragma, Hyperlane has added support for Starknet, meaning devs will soon be able to leverage Hyperlane-powered bridges to connect other chains to Starknet.

Phase 1 of Starknet staking

Starknet will be the first L2 to introduce staking directly on the L2, marking a big step toward its decentralization. Starknet’s staking and full decentralization plan will unfold in four stages, as detailed here (note: the plan is subject to change). The first phase is already live on Starknet Sepolia, and the mainnet is expected in the coming weeks.

This first phase of staking will open the door to new use cases and business opportunities on Starknet (especially liquid staking and restaking), add a new utility for STRK holders, and bring more decentralization over time.

Bitcoin Cooking

There isn’t a month without some Bitcoin cooking from StarkWare. This time, @weikengchen, a partner of StarkWare, has implemented a new verifier in Bitcoin script (with OP_CAT enabled). For the diggers out there, feel free to explore the GitHub. For everyone else, know that this brings STARK proofs on Bitcoin closer than ever and ultimately paves the way for Starknet to settle on Bitcoin in the future.

To read the rest of Starknet_Digger’s report, view it on the Starknet research hub here.