2025, Starknet established itself as a provider for high-quality blockspace. Provable, High-capacity, low-cost, high-throughput. A powerful scaling engine for all blockchains. That means job complete, time to pack it up and allow the network to proceed as designed?

No.

“What would I do today if I were an L2? Identify a value add other than ‘scaling.’”
— Vitalik Buterin

Our approach has always been more than just scaling. The 2026 Starknet infrastructure roadmap builds on the foundations already in place, unlocking execution, decentralisation, and economics at the core of the network.

Unlock: User Experience

Protocol layer: the rules enforced by code.

  1. S-two Implementation: Reduce L1 finality to under 1 hour.
  2. Rust Committer: Increase throughput capacity 2–3x.
  3. Preconfirmations: 95% of transactions confirmed in under 1 second.

Execution drives distribution.

Lower latency and higher throughput expand the set of viable applications, increasing network usage and fee revenue whilst maintaining or driving down costs for users.

  • Faster finality reduces capital lockup and settlement risk, lowering intermediary risk premiums and resulting in lower fees for users.
  • Higher throughput supports sustained demand without congestion, reducing blockspace scarcity, stabilising fees, and preventing gas spikes that make transactions expensive for users.
  • Sub-second preconfirmations enable real-time UX, making transactions feel instant and unlocking new classes of real-time applications.

A cost-efficient and performant network captures more users.

More users → more liquidity → more applications → more transaction volume → more transaction fees.

Execution performance only matters if developers can build on top of it, and with the launch of Starkzap, Starknet now offers a streamlined development environment that removes integration friction, allowing teams to ship features like invisible wallets, gas sponsorship, DeFi integrations, and Bitcoin or stablecoin payments in minutes – get started with npm install starkzap

More info at starkzap.io

Unlock: Decentralisation

Social layer: the rules upheld and changed through human coordination.

  1. Decentralised Block Validation: Multiple independent validators verify and attest to blocks.
  2. Social Governance Upgrades: Protocol changes coordinated and ratified through open governance.

Decentralisation drives resilience.

A network secured and governed by many independent actors is harder to censor, harder to corrupt, and more durable over time.

  • Decentralised validation distributes block verification across independent participants, reducing single points of failure and increasing network security.
  • Social governance upgrades formalise how rules evolve, ensuring protocol changes reflect broad consensus rather than unilateral control.

A credibly neutral network earns long-term trust.

More trust → more participation → more validators → stronger security → greater institutional adoption.

A credibly neutral network must protect user sovereignty. Bitcoin already helps secure Starknet through its role in consensus, and with strkBTC, Starknet now gives Bitcoin users optional privacy, allowing them to shield balances and transfers while preserving composability and selective disclosure.

Unlock: Economics

Economic layer: how fees, costs, and incentives shape network sustainability.

  1. Stabilised Fee Structure: Adjust fee mechanics to create a more predictable and sustainable economy.
  2. Contract Fee Adjustments: Increase fees for state diffs to better price state growth.

Efficiency drives sustainability.

A network that reduces unnecessary costs while correctly pricing resource usage becomes more sustainable, more profitable, and more resilient over time.

  • Stabilised fee mechanics align incentives across participants, reducing dilution and increasing the economic value captured by STRK.
  • Properly pricing contract state growth discourages inefficient deployments, protecting long-term network health.

A sustainable economic model strengthens the network over time.

Lower costs → higher margins → more transaction fees → greater long-term sustainability.

A sustainable economic model requires productive capital. As Starknet improves the economics of the network, it also strengthens the economics for applications building on top of it, where app revenue has already grown 15× over the past year.

With the launch of BTCFi, Bitcoin can now be put to work through staking, trading, lending, and borrowing, increasing onchain activity and economic throughput.

Unlocked Starknet – What next?

Built on strong foundations, this year’s unlocks reinforce the core of the network across execution, decentralisation, and economics. They set the stage for what comes next.

Next:

  • Starknomics.
  • Privacy.
  • ZK proving and Layer 3s.