StarkWare, the company that built Starknet, said on 10 Oct that making Starknet an independent layer 1 is “our clearest path forward.” That goes further than Starknet’s own 8 Oct post, which said only that it was “actively considering” the move. Nothing has been proposed, costed or voted on. Our 9 Oct report has the first round.

The rundown

  • What changed: StarkWare’s official X account posted at 12:14 UTC on 10 Oct that “the future of today’s blockchains is becoming increasingly uncertain,” so action is needed quickly, and that an independent L1 is its clearest path forward. The Defiant notes the post gives no governance proposal, launch date, bridge-migration design or revised STRK economics. Starknet’s own 9 Oct article, per The Defiant, calls the idea “a question, not a decision.”
  • Why it matters: An L1 would set its own timetable for swapping cryptography, rather than waiting for Ethereum’s roadmap, which targets December 2029. Starknet’s stated goal is full quantum resistance in 2027, not an L1 launch in 2027. A layer 1, in plain terms, is a chain that settles its own transactions instead of posting proofs to Ethereum.
  • Where it breaks: StarkWare’s own 30 Jun roadmap ties bridge messaging and its data publishing to Ethereum’s migration, and warns that removing the Ethereum-facing bridge functions first would break the bridge, The Defiant reports. An independent chain would also need its own validators; Starknet’s value secured is about $580 million on L2BEAT, per The Defiant. Protocol changes need Starknet governance, and we found no L1 proposal on the community forum at about 04:00 UTC on 11 Oct. A company post is not a vote.
  • By the numbers: STRK traded at $0.116 on CoinGecko at 03:49 UTC, up about 137% from Kraken’s 8 Oct 00:00 UTC open of $0.0490, with a market value near $862 million (rank 86). It is still about 97% below its $4.41 high. The sharpest hour on Kraken came at 14:00 UTC on 10 Oct, about two hours after the post (open $0.0759, high $0.1020, 15.2 million STRK traded against 0.4 to 3.3 million in each of the preceding twelve hours), and a second leg followed at 01:00 UTC on 11 Oct. We found no announcement timed to either move.

A token that has doubled on a question is pricing the answer. The answer has yet to be written. See also Zcash’s January post-quantum target and what a quantum attack on bitcoin would involve.

Post by @StarkWareLtd on X: https://x.com/StarkWareLtd/status/2108893838186344666

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.