Starknet is a Validity Rollup Layer 2. It provides high throughput, low gas costs, and retains Ethereum Layer 1 levels of security
Given a sudoku puzzle, verifying a solution is easier than solving from scratch. If our goal is to convince people of the statement “this puzzle has been solved”, we can save a lot of computation by having one person compute a solution and then propagate it for others to verify. In this strategy, each computation of a solution becomes a one-time event which does not require replication by society. In a similar vein, Starknet scales Ethereum by replacing heavy L1 computation with lighter (hence cheaper!) L1 verification using STARK proofs computed off-chain.
1. Investment funds and fundraising rounds
The project has gone through a total of seven funding rounds. The total capital of this project has been raised is 282.5M USD and is valued at about 8B USM.
However, in the fundraising rounds, Alameda Research sponsored in 3 rounds:
· Series B: 75M USD (Paradigm lead)
· Series C: 50M USD (Sequoia Capital lead)
· Funding Round: 9.5m (Alameda sponsorship only)
=> However, Alameda is short of money and met the fud because of its involvement in the FTX collapse. The money that Starknet is funding from Alameda could be drained away but probably won’t have a major impact on the project.
2. Number of followers and users
- Twitter 1: 93,238 fl
- Twitter 2: 203,245 fl
- Discord: 88,414 fl
=> The amount of funding for the project received a lot, but the number of followers was less than some of the projects analyzed above. I still haven’t figured out why.
Data of StarkEx platform since its launch on Ethereum mainnet since June 2020:
Accumulated trading volume: 951,454,171,678M USD (3.27% increase compared to April 2023). Over the past year, this trend has been steadily increasing.
Total Value Locked: 526,499,839. TVL in the past year of this project has decreased by about 50% since the peak of $1.2B and tends to go sideways from October 2022.
Transactions: 426,805,404. The types of transactions related to trading have been on an upward trend for the past year. However, the number of transactions related to mint nft tends to increase sharply in October 2022, this is also the time when many fomo people enter many ecosystems such as ZKSync, Sui,… after the appearance of Aptos’ thousand-dollar airdrop from mint NFT testnet.
3. Roadmap
This L2 has announced the latest Roadmap for 2023:
Starknet entered a “Regenesis” phase, in which it upgraded Cairo 0 smart contracts to Cairo 1.0 without requiring the network to restart or have any interruptions.
Regenesis is one of the major milestones set as the final chapter in the roadmap. Since then, the major changes of the network in the future will be decided through the DAO.
Notably, when the project shared 2024 will be the year of decentralization of the network, many people have implicitly speculated that this may be the time when layer-2 launches STRK tokens to serve the project management. In November last year, Starknet first announced the implementation of STRKs and deployed it on the Ethereum mainnet, which also introduced the coin’s tokenomics.
The plan is similar to the layer-2 zkSync era project, which also announced a focus on network decentralization in 2024.
4. Tokenomic
The allocation is thus:
17% — StarkWare Investors
32.9% — Core Contributors: StarkWare and its employees and consultants, and StarkNet software developer partners
50.1% granted by StarkWare to the Foundation, earmarked as follows:
- 9% — Community Provisions — for those who performed work for StarkNet and powered or developed its underlying technology, e.g. via past use of the StarkEx L2 systems. Crucially, all Community Provisions will be based on verifiable work that was performed in the past. For example, to the extent Community Provisions will be given to past StarkEx users, allocations will be determined based on verifiable usage of StarkEx’s technology that took place prior to June 1, 2022.
- 9% — Community Rebates — rebates in STRK Tokens to partially cover the costs of onboarding to StarkNet from Ethereum. To prevent gamification, Community Rebates will only apply to transactions that occur after the rebate mechanism is announced.
- 12% — Grants for research and work done to develop, test, deploy and maintain the StarkNet protocol
- 10% — a strategic reserve, to fund ecosystem activities that are aligned with the Foundation’s mission as explained in the previous post in this series.
- 2% — Donations to highly regarded institutions and organizations, such as universities, NGOs, etc, as decided by StarkNet Token holders and the Foundation.
- 8.1% Unallocated — the Foundation’s unallocated treasury is in place to further support the StarkNet community in a manner to be decided by the community.
To align long-term incentives of the Core Contributors and Investors with the interests of the StarkNet community, and following common practice in decentralized ecosystems, all tokens allocated to Core Contributors and Investors will be subject to a 4-year lock-up period, with linear release and a one-year cliff.
5. Airdrop Guideline
Set Up and Use Argent X Wallet
MetaMask does not currently support the Alpha Mainnet, so it is unable to integrate with the StarkNet Layer 2 network. The only option for using StarkNet is through the Argent X wallet. Argent X is the first wallet on StarkNet and is widely used as the main ecosystem wallet with over 400,000 users and is backed by leading investors such as Paragim, Index Ventures, and StarkWare Labs. You can install the browser extension for Argent X at Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Afterward, you can send and receive funds, discover new NFTs, and swap using Argent X.
Bridge to StarkNet
To be included in the snapshot, it is important to bridge to the StarkNet network from the Ethereum mainnet. To do this, we recommend using StarkGate which is the official bridge built and deployed by the StarkWare team. Connect your wallet, and send ETH tokens from mainnet to StarkNet. Minimal amounts should suffice as long as you frequently use the bridge.
Interact with 10KSwap
10KSwap is an AMM DEX that is a fork of UniSwap deployed on the StarkNet mainnet. To be included in the snapshot, it is recommended to swap tokens frequently and provide liquidity to pools. This gives you a good chance of being eligible for the airdrop.
Bridge out of StarkNet
You can also use another bridge to withdraw funds from StarkNet such as Orbiter Finance. This approach of utilizing two bridging platforms acts as a safety measure in the event that the airdrop covers one of them. Additionally, there’s a possibility of receiving a higher multiplier for the StarkNet airdrop by using both bridges.
Mint an NFT on MintSquare
MintSquare is an NFT platform integrated with both zkSync and StarkNet You can mint an NFT by uploading the supported media of any picture you want. Don’t forget to switch the network to StarkNet, not zkSync. Give it a name, some attributes, and click mint. Voilà! You have yourself a newly minted NFT on StarkNet.
Join the Starknet Xplorer Campaign
The Starknet Xplorer Campaign will be 8 NFT drops over 8 weeks starting from 3rd May 2023. The first NFT has already dropped! Here’s how to get the first Starknet Xplorer Campaign NFT:
- Download Argent X wallet here.
- Perform a transaction on Starknet mainnet between 1st April and 9th May 2023 using your Argent X wallet. You can swap tokens, rate a dapp on dappland, etc.
- On 9th May at 23:59 UTC, Starknet will take a snapshot of all eligible users who can claim and mint the first NFT.
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