With Bitcoin and its asset BTC surging in discussions from Washington to Wall Street, Michael Saylor’s office, and events like Token2049 in Singapore, it’s time for a clear vision of Starknet’s role.

What can a Layer 2 like Starknet offer BTC holders, whether institutions or individuals? How does it foster strong, decentralized systems for everyone? And how can this L2 scale Bitcoin, turning it into a true global settlement layer? After all, as BTC becomes the global reserve asset, it needs thriving financial markets.

If this were a movie, the title would now read: Bitcoin Act II: The Starknet Edition.

Today: A Trilogy of Announcements

Three key developments were announced today at Token2049 in Singapore. But first, some background.

Back at the first Bitcoin conference in San Jose in 2013, Eli Ben-Sasson, now CEO of StarkWare, shared a pioneering vision: using zero-knowledge (ZK) tech to scale Bitcoin trustlessly and enable private transactions.

Fast-forward to June 2024, the same cryptographer behind STARK cryptography (powering Starknet) outlined how Starknet could emphasise its focus on Bitcoin to realise that early vision. On March 2025 we officially declared that Starknet is planning to become Bitcoin’s execution layer.

Today, after months of work from StarkWare developers, the community, and builders, we’re excited to unveil the next phase: BTCFi on Starknet.

BTCFi on Starknet – What just happened?

Detailed announcements on these initiatives, including tech specs and rollouts, will drop over the next 24 hours. Follow @Starknet on X for updates.

1. BTC Staking – For the first time, BTC holders can stake their BTC to secure a Layer 2 and earn rewards, all without losing custody. This launches on Starknet as the first fully trustless BTC staking on any L2.

Every previous approach had tradeoffs like security risks, scalability issues, synthetic points systems, or lack of real economic activity. What launches today changes that. Bitcoin will be embedded into Starknet’s core security and consensus. BTC stakers will help secure the network and attest transactions in exchange for rewards.

Starknet gains from BTC’s unmatched decentralization and security, while Bitcoiners put their sats to work. Starknet’s staking is already proven, with ~65k delegators, ~150 validators, and over 575m STRK staked.


2. Key Contributors – Contributors like WBTC, Lombard, Solv, and Threshold Network are making BTCFi on Starknet real, easing BTC’s use in DeFi and cross-chain access. Non-Bitcoin-native players like LayerZero, Hyperlane, Rhino.Fi, Atomiq, and Garden enable smooth cross-chain flows. Pragma, Starknet’s native oracle provider, has been contributing on multiple fronts, from price feed infrastructure, to structured products, with automated trading strategies run by its asset management arm, 0D Capital.

Re7 Capital – who operate a Cayman fund with $1B+ AUM fund and managed by FCA and CIMA regulated investment managers, is an early ecosystem investor. Like Multicoin and Jump Capital did for Solana, Re7 is building momentum and infrastructure on Starknet. We’re excited to work with them as Starknet grows.

Their new BTC-denominated yield fund advances institutional BTC deployment and shares our vision for BTC’s future with more utility and functionality.


3. 100M STRK Incentives – to affirm BTC’s status as a pristine asset, the Starknet Foundation is launching a 100 million STRK incentives program (“BTCFi Season”) to boost the BTCFi ecosystem on Starknet.


This program will distribute 100 million STRK to kick start the BTCFi flywheel, making Starknet the most affordable place to borrow stables against BTC and fueling yield strategies like tokenised basis trades, RWAs and more.

Our Broader Blockchain Values

These steps empower individuals and institutions to activate their BTC. Ultimately, this strengthens decentralised systems for a more equitable, integrity-driven future.

Whether via direct staking of BTC, or participation in other initiatives such as Re7’s, when any amount of BTC arrives on Starknet, something unique is happening. The holder is earning yield from one chain’s asset (BTC) while helping secure another.

While headlines emphasise BTC as just a store of value (like Saylor’s focus), we believe the emerging global reserve asset requires real utility and secure and robust financial markets.

Security

Starknet handles BTC transparently through auditable protocols, avoiding opacity or hidden leverage. Our zk-STARK proofs are post-quantum secure and require no trusted setup-the only ZK-Rollup in production with this guarantee. We are the only ZK/Validity Rollup confirmed by L2Beat as Stage 1. This same technology class, via the permissioned StarkEx systems that preceded the permissionless Starknet, has secured over $1.38 trillion in cumulative trading volume, $206 million in total value locked, more than 1.06 billion transactions, and 219 million NFTs.

Making Starknet the Execution Layer for Bitcoin

We’ll dive deeper into the three developments over the next day.

But first, a word on Part 2 of the Bitcoin-Starknet story. The main focus of today’s developments is bringing Bitcoin to Starknet.

The Bitcoin economy on Starknet is the vital first step, unlocking true utility for BTC holders to earn yield and join DeFi without sacrificing security or decentralisation.

We’re also advancing our other efforts towards the end goal – becoming Bitcoin’s execution layer. Using Circle STARKs, we’ve verified Bitcoin’s full header chain in 25 milliseconds on a Raspberry Pi. Our decentralisation roadmap is on schedule. We are the first L2 to launch decentralised sequencers. We are also in close collaboration with the leading BitVM teams on the frontier of Bitcoin scaling research and development.

Our vision is accelerating toward a scaled, unified Bitcoin ecosystem with Starknet as its high performance engine.

Watch for more updates on each of these initiatives soon!