STARKs over Bitcoin: The Journey Continues

Three major developments related to Bitcoin took place this month. First, StarkWare announced a partnership with sCrypt to develop a PoC bridge design using OP_CAT-based covenants and ZK technology. The ultimate goal is to tackle the engineering challenges of building a canonical Bitcoin <> L2 bridge, ensuring StarkWare is fully prepared to deploy this bridge between Starknet and Bitcoin as soon as (and if) OP_CAT is reactivated on Bitcoin.

To educate the community on the benefits (and potential risks) of OP_CAT for Bitcoin, StarkWare launched a $1M OP_CAT fund two months ago. The first beneficiary of this fund is now known: @LimeChainHQ, which will explore how OP_CAT can significantly improve token trading on Bitcoin. If you have a research idea related to OP_CAT and are seeking funding, feel free to apply to this research fund now.

Finally, the StarkWare exploration team launched Raiko, a ZK Bitcoin client implemented in Cairo. Raiko aims to bring trustless validation of the Bitcoin blockchain through STARK proof verification.

Road to decentralization: Governance and Staking

Starknet is the first major L2 to introduce staking directly on L2. This means the STRK token will soon have a new utility: securing the network through staking. This adds to its current utilities of paying gas fees and governance.

Speaking of governance, the first community vote on Mainnet has taken place! Powered by SnapshotLabs’ new product (Snapshot X), this fully onchain vote gave STRK holders the chance to weigh in on staking parameters, including inflation and rewards. Below are the results of this vote 👇

The first phase of staking will be completed by Q4 2024, allowing anyone to become a validator (with a minimum of 20k STRK and it will be expected to run a full node) or a delegator.

Several key staking service providers have already announced their support for STRK staking, including Twinstake, Astrarizon, Allnode, and Karnot (which will offer 0% commission on delegations!!).

EVM coming soon to Starknet

Starknet is about to become the first dual-VM Validity Rollup, allowing developers who use EVM-compatible languages like Solidity to launch their dApps directly on Starknet without needing to learn Cairo. By the end of Q4 2024, we’ll have both EVM and Cairo dApps on Starknet L2, working together!

For more details, you can read this Q&A with Kakarot’s co-founder and CEO. You can also learn more about the Kakarot vision for Starknet here.

Speaking of Kakarot, they have just completed their audit by Zellic!

Stone v3 is now Open-Source

Stone v3, the prover used in SHARP v6, is now open source. This means everyone can now see how Stone boosts SHARP’s efficiency by 10x 🤓

Hacker Houses

These two updates are for the builders and the devs. Two Hacker Houses are happening soon, providing devs and builders with a chance to accelerate their projects and reach production-ready status:

  • Bangkok (Thailand) 06.11.24 – 10.11.24
  • Bangalore (India) 29.11.24 – 03.12.24

Grants hub

The Starknet Foundation has launched its grant hub, listing all the available support programs available for Starknet projects and showcasing the current grantees. If you’re building on Starknet, don’t hesitate to apply!

Stats of the month

Starknet’s TPS capacity has significantly increased with the release of the Bolt upgrade last month. Although the upgrade’s announced figures were theoretical, we now have proof that these numbers are a reality—surpassing expectations: 503 TPS were achieved on Starknet Mainnet!

Developers are the backbone of any ecosystem—without them, there’s no quality infrastructure or great dApps for users. The good news is that more and more devs are diving into Starknet at an impressive pace:

Finally, the gaming ecosystem powered by Dojo continues to grow—and faster than ever. In just two months, they have more than doubled the number of projects building and powered by Dojo:

Argent shipping non-stop

This month, Argent released two major features. The first one is ‘Gifting‘, making it easier to onboard your friends to Starknet by sending them funds, even if they don’t have a Starknet compatible wallet.

The second one is the ‘Invest‘ feature, allowing you to put your assets to work within Starknet’s DeFi, without leaving your Argent wallet.

And Ekubo too!

Ekubo isn’t making much noise but continues shipping new features. Notably, they’ve increased quote speed by ~10x this month, and executed two proposals on Mainnet. The most significant for us being the Ekubo buyback which has now started.