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Optimism and Arbitrum flip Ethereum in combined transaction volume

January 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Arbitrum

The two layer-2 networks processed more than 1.1 million transactions combined on Jan. 10.

Ethereum layer-2 on-chain activity has been increasing to the extent that the leading two networks now process more transaction volume than mainnet Ethereum.

Layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism have seen an increase in transactions over the past three months. Comparatively, aside from a few spikes, transactions on the Ethereum network have declined by around 33% since late October, according to Etherscan.

This has enabled the two L2s combined to flip Ethereum for this metric, according to Dune Analytics data.

The chart shows Ethereum processed over 1.06 million transactions on Jan. 10, whereas Arbitrum and Optimism combined processed over 1.12 million transactions.

Additionally, Optimism has now surpassed Arbitrum in terms of daily transactions following a steady uptrend in activity since September.

Layer-2 ecosystem analytics website L2beat reported all L2 activity in terms of transactions per second (TPS) surpassed that of Ethereum in October, and has remained above it since.

On Jan. 10, Ethereum processed an average of around 12 TPS, compared to the L2’s average of nearly 16.5 TPS.

Arbitrum and Optimism combined represent almost 80% of the entire layer-2 ecosystem, according to L2beat.

Arbitrum One remains the market leader in terms of total value locked (TVL) with around $2.34 billion in collateral, giving it a 52.5% market share.

Optimism is in second place with a TVL of $1.28 billion and a 28.6% market share.

According to Nansen researcher Martin Lee, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are one of the key drivers of the adoption of the Optimism chain.

Other layer twos such as zk-rollup StarkNet have also been processing more transactions recently. StarkWare technology also powers other solutions including ImmutableX and dYdX.

In October, it was reported StarkNet was processing more transactions per week than the Bitcoin (BTC) network.

Additionally, Starkscan reports the network is at an all-time high in terms of TVL at $5.2 million.

StarkNet overhauls Cairo programming language to drive developer adoption

January 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Cairo

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkNet has revamped its Cairo programming language to enable easier onboarding of new developers.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkNet has overhauled its in-house Cairo coding language to make Web3 development accessible to developers.

An announcement shared with Cointelegraph outlined the upgrades to Cairo 1.0, which is touted to emulate characteristics of the popular programming language Rust. The overhaul intends to allow developers with general coding experience to begin building decentralized applications on StarkNet’s Ethereum layer-2 network.

StarkWare co-founder and president Eli Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that making layer-2 development more accessible to developers of varying backgrounds was the main reason for Cairo’s revamp:

“Primary drivers were safety and ease of use, and conducting the overhaul presented a terrific opportunity to remove the entry for developers with conventional language backgrounds.”

Technical specifications outlined in the Jan. 5 launch encompass a host of improvements to Cairo’s language. This includes improved syntax and language constructs, a holistic type system, intuitive libraries, optimized code and strong typing by demanding specification of data types.

StarkNet highlights Sierra as the main addition to Cairo’s overhaul, which stands for Safe Intermediate Representation. Sierra acts as a new intermediate representation layer between Cairo 1.0 and Cairo byte code.

As Ben Sasson explained, Sierra is an important aspect of ensuring a permissionless network. The upgrade enables reverted transactions to be included in StarkNet blocks, helping the protocol to avoid adding complex ‘crypto-economic mechanisms.’

Ben Sasson said that Sierra will allow StarkNet to ‘inherit the full censorship-resistance of Ethereum’ and mainly protects against Sequencer Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Ben-Sasson pioneered ZK-STARK cryptography alongside other computer scientists. Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge is a proof system that encrypts and verifies transaction data to provide security, scalability and resistance to quantum computing.

According to StarkNet, Cairo is the fourth most popular smart contract language by total value locked. It is the base of applications that have processed over 300 million transactions, minted 90 million NFTs and facilitated $790 million worth of trades settled on Ethereum.

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L2 is crucial to Ethereum decentralization, censorship resistance, says researcher

November 9, 2022 Coin Telegraph

board

Swedish researcher Eric Wall highlighted StarkNet’s influence on Ethereum’s scalability as he joins the board of the newly formed StarkNet Foundation.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkWare has officially launched the StarkNet Foundation with the introduction of a diverse board that aims to safeguard Ethereum's decentralization and censorship resistance.

Seven individuals, including key members from the Ethereum ecosystem and wider cryptocurrency space, will head up the non-profit entity. An announcement shared with Cointelegraph outlined the role of the StarkNet Foundation in ensuring the maintenance and security of StarkNet’s network as well as its development and expansion.

Cointelegraph reached out to Eric Wall to unpack his appointment to the Foundation's board. Wall is a blockchain researcher and whistleblower who has exposed systemic flaws in high-profile cryptocurrency projects. Wall also acts as an advisor on cryptocurrency to the Human Rights Foundation.

Wall highlighted systemic efforts to help Ethereum continue scaling through layer-2 innovations as key to the ongoing success of the smart contract blockchain network:

“Since Ethereum is the most important DeFi chain we have, I care a lot about making sure that it sticks to the ethos of decentralization and censorship resistance. This battle is fought at the baselayer, but must also be fought at the layers above.”

Wall told Cointelegraph that his motivation to join the Foundation was to ensure that ‘one of Ethereum’s most important second layers’ did not neglect the ethos of the underlying blockchain:

“StarkWare is probably the most important player in the ecosystem in pioneering validity proof systems that many believe are absolutely central to Ethereum’s scalability endgame, and StarkNet is the general-purpose platform leveraging that technology”

Wall highlighted the Foundation’s role in managing relationships with ecosystem partners and developers as well as allocating grants. This includes ensuring partnerships are in the best interest of StarkNet users and are aligned with ‘the fundamental ethos of neutral open-source engineering’.

The Foundation will also focus on StarkNet technology education to help developers learn how to build Decentralized Applications (DApps) using StarkWare’s proprietary STARKs (Scalable, Transparent ARgument of Knowledge) proof system.

The Foundation's board also includes StarkWare CEO and co-founder Uri Kolodny and StarkWare’s president, co-founder and computer scientist Eli Ben-Sasson. Computer scientist and StarkNet advisor Shubhangi Saraf, blockchain developer and Nethermind founder Tomasz Stańczak, former United States deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin and award-winning lawyer Heather Meeker make up the rest of the leadership group.

As previously reported, StarkNet is a decentralized layer-2 validity rollup that aims to scale the Ethereum network while maintaining its security and decentralization. It addresses what is known as the ‘blockchain trilemma’ coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

The StarkNet Foundation will manage 50.1% of the ecosystem’s initial token supply to guide the network’s allocation of resources. The funds will be used to support StarkNet’s community of users, developers and researchers, which contribute to the ecosystem by creating infrastructure, tools and applications.

Scaling