Starknet’s Quantum Leap hits testnet with TPS reaching ‘triple figures’

July 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Starknet's latest upgrade will scale the ZK rollup's throughput by 50X or more. But capacity is very different to real world usage.

Starknet’s Quantum Leap upgrade has been deployed on testnet, with the Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol claiming it's capable of processing "hundreds of transactions per second."

If achieved, it would be at least a 50X improvement from its current throughput, thanks to the Version 12 upgrade harmonizing how the sequencer's code interacts with the Cairo programming language.

A Starknet fact sheet states that the "time to inclusion" after the upgrade goes live on mainnet "will be under 15 seconds" meaning DApps will be able to confirm transactions on-chain within seconds.

Co-founder Uri Kolodny was a little more circumspect in an interview with Cointelegraph, stating that the upgrade has hit "triple figures" during testing so far.

If this throughput is mirrored in real-world usage — and high TPS is as much a function of demand from users as technical capability — the upgrade would be a huge leap for Israeli firm StarkWare's decentralized scaling network.

According to L2Beat, Starknet is currently processing just 1.79 TPS, meaning the upgrade could improve transaction speed by 56X or more. It would also easily outshine other Ethereum L2s including the OP mainnet (6 TPS), zkSync Era (8.63 TPS) and Arbitrum One (9.69 TPS), not to mention Ethereum itself (12.29 TPS).

But to put those TPS figures in perspective, it's still a lot less than Solana's 4127 TPS or Visa's 1700 TPS.

"Scaling has been the primary challenge that this ecosystem has been fighting with over the past several years," Kolodny said.

"We believe that Version 12 brings with it this Quantum Leap — in fact there are a whole series of leaps that will roll out through the summer we'll go through. But we are already in the triple digits for transactions per second."

Capacity is very different to usage however, and even after the upgrade if there are not enough users on Starknet that actually make 100 transactions per second, then the protocol will not run at 100 TPS.

Kolodny added that raw TPS is not the best metric of performance, given that complicated transactions are harder to perform than simple ones. But he said the upgrade also enables complicated transactions to make multiple calls "each performing separate logic from a separate contract."

"In terms of Cairo steps per second, we're observing an increase of at least something on the order of 50X compared to what we have today."

Zero Barriers podcast series: Crypto adoption fueled by ZK-rollups

The Quantum Leap upgrade does not solve the data availability problem faced by all ZK rollups. The issue is that there is not enough room on Ethereum to write back all of the required data for the transactions on L2s, which pushes up costs.

As of now, 90% of costs on Starknet are associated with Data availability cost to L1.

Ackktually, Starknet will be the first L2 to offer Volition, and reduce fees by up to 85% post its launch later this year.

Moreover, the implementation of EIP4844 on L1 will further lower it.
— Starknet (@Starknet) June 7, 2023

Kolodny said this would be addressed by the Version 13 Volition upgrade , which is due before the end of this quarter. It will give users granular control that enables them to store crucial or high value data on Ethereum, and less important data elsewhere. This is projected to cut fees by 85% and could pave the way for low fee micropayments or a boom in affordable and fast blockchain gaming.

One of the key components of the upgrade is Cairo-rs, which is a faster implementation of the Cairo virtual machine using Rust instead of Python from venture studio LambdaClass.

Founder Federico Carrone said Quantum Leap was a "historic moment" for blockchains in general.

"This release shows that it's possible to scale blockchains in a safe way thanks to STARKs and enables the creation of new applications that were impossible to think of a few years ago on top of a blockchain."

StarkWare previously announced on June 29 that its validity proof ZK scaling technology had now facilitated more than $1 trillion in transactions.

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Starknet moves closer to EVM compatibility with upcoming ‘Kakarot’ testnet

June 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

With fresh funding under its belt, a new zkEVM is set to go to testnet in August, allowing developers to write in any EVM-compatible language on Starknet.

Starknet, a zero knowledge layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum is one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM.

On June 3, the Kakarot team announced it had received new backing from Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, Ledger co-founder Nicholas Bacca and Starkware.

We have powered up and entered Super Saiyan mode⚡. Kakarot Labs has officially been incorporated and closed a pre-seed round with top-tier investors.

Let’s unpack our vision, current standing, and the exciting future ahead. pic.twitter.com/VI8QRdPLfw
— Kakarot zkEVM (@KakarotZkEvm) June 2, 2023

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kakarot CEO and Co-Founder Elias Tazartes explained that while Starknet stands as a leading Zero Knowledge roll-up in the Ethereum ecosystem, it's not EVM compatible, so there’s “kind of a barrier to entry.”

Starknet is used by developers to scale decentralized applications, transactions and computation on Ethereum, but uses its own native language Cairo. According to Starknet, the use of Cairo makes it easier and faster to develop, review and maintain new code.

The downside is that it isn’t EVM compatible, which could dissuade some developers.

“The greatest impact that Kakarot can have is to make Starknet EVM compatible.”

“Kakarot right now is like a Solidity or any language engine. Eventually you will be able to put that engine within Starknet to make it EVM compatible.”

At present, Starknet runs its own custom smart contract Virtual Machine dubbed “Cairo VM” that leverages its native coding language Cairo. This means that Starknet doesn’t have direct EVM compatibility out of the box, something that could prove to be a significant hurdle for overall rollup performance.

“Some teams really need to be able to use Solidity. For example, if someone wrote a DEX or an AMM for the Ethereum ecosystem and now has 60,000 lines of code already audited, ready to go, but it’s only on EVM chains.”

If these developers wanted to start using Starknet they would have to hire a whole new dev team, write in, audit the code again and maintain two code bases, becoming what Tazartes describes as “prohibitively expensive.”

According to Tazartes, the idea for the zkEVM was first floated during a Starkware conference in July 2022. By October, the development team was able to together for a week during a hacker house event in Lisbon, Portugal to get cracking on the new zkEVM.

Two months and 20 days later in December, the coding for the project was complete, arriving at a fully functional execution layer — all of which was achieved without any venture funding.

Notably, Tazartes said that Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buteirn later invested in Kakarot due to his enthusiasm toward a multiple-zkEVM approach to building out the Ethereum ecosystem.

“For Vitalik, the more zkEVMs the better, because as long as you have a wide diversity of architecture and diversity of approaches…then this is really good for the space as a whole.”

Tazartes shared that the testnet version of Kakarot will be launched for public use in August this year.

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Buterin weighs in on zk-EVMs impact on decentralization and security

April 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Client

Vitalik Buterin has weighed the impacts of the addition of zk-EVMs at the protocol level, saying it could speed up the verification process on the base layer.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wants to see zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zk-EVMs) built on Ethereum’s first layer to speed up the verification process on the base blockchain.

Buterin explained in a March 31 post that it’s possible to integrate a zk-EVM on the base layer without compromising on decentralization and security. The technology enables Ethereum Virtual Machines to execute smart contracts on the blockchain with ZK proofs.

How will Ethereum's multi-client philosophy interact with ZK-EVMs?https://t.co/MPpTPNhldR
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) March 31, 2023

Ethereum was developed with a “multi-client philosophy” to ensure decentralization at the protocol level, Buterin explained. By integrating zk-EVMs at the Ethereum layer 1, it would be the third type of client.

“Once that happens, zk-EVMs de-facto become a third type of Ethereum client, just as important to the network's security as execution clients and consensus clients are today.”

The other two clients are the “consensus” and “execution” clients. The consensus client implements proof-of-stake to ensure nodes in the network reach agreement. While the execution listens to new transactions broadcasted in the network, executes them in standard EVM and holds a copy of the latest state of the blockchain.

In championing the idea of zk-EVM verification at the Ethereum base layer, Buterin firstly considered the advantages and drawbacks of treating the layer 1 as a “clearinghouse” by pushing almost all activity to layer 2’s.

He said many layer 1-based apps would become “economically nonviable” and that small funds — worth a few hundred dollars or less — may get “stuck” in the event that gas fees grow too large.

Buterin explained that zk-EVMs would need to be “open” in that different clients each have different zk-EVM implementations and each client waits for a proof that is compatible with its own implementation before accepting a block as valid.

He prefers this approach because it wouldn’t abandon the “multi-client” paradigm, and an open zk-EVM infrastructure would also ensure that new clients could be developed, which would further decentralize Ethereum at the base layer.

Buterin said zkEVMs may be the solution to “The Verge,” a part of the Ethereum roadmap which aims to make verification at the base layer easier.

Updated roadmap diagram! pic.twitter.com/MT9BKgYcJH
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 4, 2022

Buterin acknowledged that the zk-EVM infrastructure may cause data inefficiency and latency issues, however he said those challenges wouldn’t be “too hard” to overcome.

If the zk-EVM ecosystem is implemented, it would make running a full node on Ethereum even easier, Buterin explained:

“Ethereum blocks would be smaller than today, anyone could run a fully verifying node on their laptop or even their phone or inside a browser extension, and this would all happen while preserving the benefits of Ethereum's multi-client philosophy.”

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Polygon has made considerable progress with its zk-EVM, having recently open-sourced its zkEVM to the Polygon mainnet on March 27, promising reduced transaction costs and increased throughput of smart contract deployments.

StarkWare, ConsenSys, Scroll, zkSync and Immutable are also deploying similar zkEVM scaling solutions.

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Top Ethereum (ETH) Scaling Firm StarkWare To Make Key Technology Open Source

February 7, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Chainlink oracle, data feeds coming to StarkNet ecosystem

February 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain

StarkWare is set to partner with Chainlink Labs to integrate oracle services and data feeds to the StarkNet testnet.

Blockchain scaling technology firm StarkWare is set to partner with Chainlink Labs to bring oracle services, data and price feeds to the StarkNet ecosystem.

The coalition will see StarkWare join Chainlink’s Scale program and brings Chainlink price feeds to StarkNet’s testnet. StarkNet tokens will also fund certain operating costs for Chainlink oracle nodes, giving Starket developers access to Chainlink oracle services and data feeds.

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data sources, APIs and payment systems. It allows smart contracts to interact with real-world data and events, making it possible for them to be triggered by data from external sources.

The network features independent nodes that provide secure and reliable data to smart contracts, incentivized by payment in Chainlink’s native LINK token. Node operators verify and perform data computations, which ensures accurate and reliable data is delivered to smart contracts.

An announcement from StarWare highlights the establishment of a sustainable economic system between StarkNet and Chainlink. The integration is also expected to provide the necessary infrastructure for StarkNet developers to build “highly performant, increasingly complex, and secure smart contract applications.“

StarkWare product manager and researcher Ohad Barta told Cointelegraph that work to introduce Chainlink’s oracle services to StarkNet has been ongoing since June 2022. Various oracle services will be integrated into StarkNet, according to Barta, highlighting the benefit of diversity in smaller and larger oracles serving the network:

“Oracles are an essential component, they are relevant in many use cases. A lot of applications need to know the price of assets or NFTs. Oracles are like a complete toolkit.”

Barta also believes that the reputation of Chainlink’s services within the Ethereum ecosystem is another major reason for the integration with StarkNet:

“The main benefit is any application or startup can integrate with Chainlink price feeds and know it will be accurate and have some peace of mind when they are building their product.”

A statement from Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov highlighted the partnership’s potential in Chainlink oracle networks operating at high speeds and low costs for Starknet users and developers:

“By reducing the operating costs of oracle nodes, StarkNet is able to accelerate its ecosystem’s growth and become a more attractive environment for building scalable DApps in the Web3 ecosystem.”

Chainlink data feeds are live on StarkNet’s testnet, with a mainnet integration expected in the coming months. Cointelegraph is currently covering StarkWare Sessions in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the company announced that it would make its proprietary Starknet Prover open source. The prover is the engine that StarkWare uses in its zero-knowledge roll-up technology.

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StarkNet makes Cairo 1.0 open source in first step toward community control

November 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Cairo

StarkNet has prioritized scalability over composability and transparency. But it’s now working on making its tech open source.

Zero-knowledge (ZK)-Rollup tech company StarkWare has officially open sourced its new programming language compiler, Cairo 1.0, which will soon be supported on Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution StarkNet in Q1 2023.

The news was announced by StarkWare — the company behind StarkNet — in a Nov. 25 Twitter post. StarkWare’s rollup technology and recursive proofs offer the potential to compress millions of transactions on L2 into a single transaction on Ethereum, however the project has been criticized for maintaining control over its IP, not least of all by its more open source focused competitor zkSync.

StarkWare described open sourcing Cairo as a “milestone move” in its quest to hand over more control and intellectual property rights to its community and developers. Cairo is a programming language written specifically to harness the power of zk rollups and validity proofs.

The day has come: a first look into Cairo 1.0, fully open-source

This is a big step towards open-sourcing the StarkNet stack

You can now get familiar with the new syntax, compile and run simple programs locally. #StarkNet support is coming soonhttps://t.co/0tdZDhopEP
— StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) November 24, 2022

StarkWare stated that developers can now experiment with Cairo 1.0 by compiling and executing simple applications until it is fully supported on StarkNet in Q1 2023.

At that point Cairo 1.0 will enable faster feature development and allow for more community involvement, according to Starkware Exploration Lead and former Ethereum core developer Abdelhamid Bakhta.

“We’re continuing to open source the StarkNet tech stack, beginning with Cairo 1.0. We’re doing this in order to fulfill StarkNet's vision as a public good that anyone can use, and that the community can constantly improve,” he said.

“On a practical level this maximizes transparency about our code, and our coding process. And it strengthens the community’s ability to find bugs and improve the compiler. With each aspect of the tech stack that is open sourced, this sense of community involvement will grow and grow.”

Once in production, Cairo 1.0 will also enable blockchain developers to write and deploy smart contracts to StarkNet, according to StarkWare’s Medium post.

StarkWare added that because Cairo 1.0 makes every computation “provable,” StarkNet’s censorship resistance properties will be strengthened and it’ll also be better positioned to respond to Denial-of-Service attacks.

StarkWare’s STARK tech stack powers a number of Web3 projects including decentralized exchange (DEX) platform dYdX (although this is moving to its own chain on Cosmos), NFT-platform Immutable X and blockchain interoperability protocol Celer Network.

StarkNet has taken a gamble by using Cairo to speed up its solution, which is not natively compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). However Ethereum software tooling firm Nethermind built a transpiler called Warp that converts Solidity code into Cairo code.

Competitor zkSync’s EVM-compatible mainnet is in the process of being launched.

But despite taking a more difficult path, StarkWare founder Eli Ben-Sasson recently told Cointelegraph that using custom built programming language like Cairo, as opposed to Solidity, was the only viable way to take full advantage of Ethereum scaling afforded by ZK rollups:

“I’m willing to bet that you won’t see a full blown ZK EVM that can put a million transactions inside a single proof on Ethereum. As we can easily do today and have been doing for months and years.”

The news comes as Starkware also recently deployed the new StarkNet token (STRK) on Ethereum on Nov. 17, which will be used for staking and voting purposes in addition to paying fees on the network.

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.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shares vision for layer-3 protocols

September 20, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

While layer-2 protocols have been focused on “scalability,” layer-3 protocols would serve a much different purpose, says Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

While Ethereum-based layer-2 solutions have been focused on hyperscaling the network, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes layer 3s will serve a far different purpose — providing “customized functionality.”

Buterin shared his thoughts in a Saturday post, providing three “visions” of what layer 3s will be used for in the future.

The Ethereum co-founder said a third layer on the blockchain makes sense only if it provides a different function to layer 2s, which have been used mainly to enhance scaling via zero-knowledge (zk) Rollup technology:

“A three-layer scaling architecture that consists of stacking the same scaling scheme on top of itself generally does not work well. Rollups on top of rollups, where the two layers of rollups use the same technology, certainly do not.”

But, “a three-layer architecture where the second layer and third layer have different purposes, however, can work,” said Buterin.

One of layer 3’s use cases would be what Buterin describes as “customized functionality” — referencing privacy-based applications which would utilize zk proofs to submit privacy-preserving transactions to layer 2.

Another use case would be “customized scaling” for specialized applications that don’t want to use the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to do computation.

Buterin also said that layer 3 could be used for “weakly-trusted” scaling through Validiums, a zk-proof technology. Buterin said this may be beneficial for “enterprise blockchain” applications by using “a centralized server that runs a validium prover and regularly commits hashes to chain.”

But, Buterin added that it’s still unclear whether layer-3 structures will be more efficient than the current layer-2 model when it comes to building customized applications on Ethereum.

*Layer-2 Vs Layer-3 Network Architecture. Source:* *StarkWare.*

“One possible argument for the three-layer model over the two-layer model is: a three-layer model allows an entire sub-ecosystem to exist within a single rollup, which allows cross-domain operations within that ecosystem to happen very cheaply, without needing to go through the expensive layer 1,” Buterin said.

But, Buterin said that because cross-chain transactions can be executed easily and cheaply between two layer 2s that have committed to the same chain, building layer 3s may not necessarily improve the efficiency of the network.

Buterin’s comments on possible layer 3 use cases come as StarkWare’s newly produced recursive validity proofs appear to have possibly put an end to Ethereum’s scalability concerns.

Declan Fox, the product manager at Ethereum software firm ConsenSys, recently told Cointelegraph that “with recursive rollups and proofs, we theoretically can infinitely scale.”

These recursive proofs have been well tested in production, with StarkWare co-founder Eli-Ben Sasson recently telling Cointelegraph that its recursive proofs have rolled up as many as 600,000 nonfungible token mints in a single transaction on Immutable X and that 60 million transactions could soon be on the cards “with more engineering and tweaking.”

starkware