Starknet is a permissionless Layer 2 validity rollup on Ethereum that bundles transactions into STARK proofs. Its native token, STRK, is used for transaction fees, staking, and governance. As of 1 November 2026 at 03:09 UTC, STRK traded at $0.04326, down 1.24% over 24 hours, with a market cap of $331.57M (rank #183) and 24h volume of $48.34M. The token is 99.02% below its all-time high of $4.41.
Core technology and blockchain architecture
Starknet executes transactions off-chain and proves their correctness with zero-knowledge STARK proofs. A sequencer validates transactions and proposes blocks, and a prover generates a STARK proof for each block. Validity proofs are verified on Ethereum before state updates are accepted. STARKs require no trusted setup, and StarkWare states that they rely on assumptions that resist quantum attacks.
Contracts on Starknet are written in Cairo, a language designed for programs whose execution can be proved with STARKs. SHARP (SHARed Prover) aggregates proofs from multiple Cairo programs into one proof verified on Ethereum. S-two, a next-generation prover based on Circle STARKs, went live on Starknet mainnet on 3 November 2025, replacing the earlier Stone prover. Nansen reports up to 100x efficiency gains over Stone.
Primary use cases and real-world applications
Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi): Starknet hosts Endur for BTC staking and liquid staking tokens, Vesu for BTC-backed lending, Ekubo for trading liquidity, AVNU for cross-chain swaps, and Re7 for structured yield vaults. Nansen reports more than 30 BTCFi projects and 100M STRK in incentives in H2 2025.
strkBTC: This ERC-20 is backed by BTC locked on Bitcoin. It went live on 12 May 2026 as the first asset built on the STRK20 privacy framework. Starknet announced on 2 October 2026 that bridge fees would be covered for the first 100 BTC bridged.
Privacy (STRK20): STRK20 lets ERC-20 tokens be shielded, with hidden balances and private transfers. Crypto Briefing reports it launched on 9 June 2026. Selective disclosure is supported for compliance.
Institutional payments: In February 2026, StarkWare announced an integration with Nightfall, a zero-knowledge privacy layer built by Ernst & Young, aimed at confidential B2B payments and treasury management. No volume data has been published.
Developer tooling: Starkzap, a TypeScript SDK announced on 24 February 2026, gives apps native BTC and STRK staking, token transfers, and account abstraction.
Who is behind Starknet and where is it based?
StarkWare (developer): StarkWare Industries was founded in 2018 according to its media kit and most sources, though Dealroom and a 2021 CTech article give 2017. The co-founders named in StarkWare's media kit and Wikipedia are Eli Ben-Sasson, Uri Kolodny, Michael Riabzev, and Alessandro Chiesa. Ben-Sasson is listed as CEO and chairman in the media kit, and Kolodny is a co-founder and former CEO. The company is headquartered in Netanya, Israel. Its funding includes a $30M Series A led by Paradigm in 2018, a $75M Series B led by Paradigm in March 2021, and a $100M Series D led by Greenoaks and Coatue in May 2022 at an $8B valuation. The sources reviewed did not confirm StarkWare's 2026 leadership or board, and they name no core developer team beyond StarkWare leadership and the public authors of Starknet Improvement Proposals (SNIPs).
Starknet Foundation (ecosystem steward): The Foundation was introduced on 9 November 2022 as an independent, not-for-profit entity. Its legal entity is STARKNET FOUNDATION, a Cayman Islands foundation company (registration number 393786), with its registered address c/o Leeward Management Limited, George Town, Grand Cayman. Diego Oliva has been described as its CEO.
Tokenomics
- Total supply: StarkWare created 10 billion STRK in May 2022, minted onchain on 30 November 2022. The snapshot total supply is 10,184,600,000 STRK.
- Circulating supply: 7,664,828,795 STRK.
- Initial allocation (per Starknet docs): 20.04% to early contributors (locked), 18.17% to investors (locked), 10.76% to StarkWare for operational services, and the remainder to the community through the Foundation.
- Provisions airdrop: The first round distributed more than 700 million STRK to about 1.3 million addresses, with claims opening on 20 February 2024.
- Unlock schedule: After a revision in February 2024, unlocks of 127 million STRK (1.27%) occur monthly from 15 April 2025 through 15 March 2027.
- Inflation and staking: New STRK is minted for staking rewards according to a minting curve, M = 10 · C · σ, where C is the effective inflation coefficient and σ is the share of supply staked. More staked STRK means higher inflation and lower per-token rewards. The minimum validator stake is 20,000 STRK. A postquantum.com report citing staking data puts staked supply at about 1.54 billion STRK across 137 active validators on 17 October 2026.
- Deflation: The sources identify no burn mechanism. Since v0.14.0 on 1 September 2025, fees can only be paid in STRK, and the receiving sequencer may convert a portion to ETH to cover Ethereum L1 gas costs.
Consensus mechanism and network security model
Starknet's security is inherited from Ethereum, since validity proofs are checked on Ethereum before state changes are accepted. L2BEAT lists Starknet as a Stage 1 rollup, according to Starknet's roadmap.
Sequencing is decentralizing in phases. Version 0.14.0, live on mainnet since 1 September 2025, introduced three independent sequencers that run Tendermint consensus on each block, with one-block finality. A Blockworks filing citing L2BEAT describes five permissioned consensus sequencers as of v0.14.3. Staking v2 introduced block attestation. Staking v3 and v0.15.0, which would bring decentralized block validation, are in progress, and StarkWare targets late 2026 for Staking v3. The sources do not confirm that v0.15.0 has shipped. Normal StarkWare upgrades pass through an 8-day delay.
Key partnerships and ecosystem integrations
- strkBTC Federation: Twinstake, NEAR Intents, Luganodes, UTXO, and Xverse support BTC movement into and out of Starknet.
- Interoperability: Circle CCTP, LayerZero, Hyperlane, and NEAR Intents, per Nansen's H2 2025 report.
- STRK20 ecosystem: Ready, Xverse, AVNU, Ekubo, Vesu, Circle, Troves, Endur.fi, ForgeYield, and DashX are listed as participants.
- Enterprise privacy: The Nightfall integration with Ernst & Young, announced in February 2026.
Competitive advantages and unique value proposition
Starknet's main differentiators are its STARK-based proofs, which need no trusted setup, its Cairo stack, and native privacy built into the protocol through STRK20. Version 0.14.2 added privacy infrastructure to the protocol on 20 April 2026. Version 0.14.4, live on mainnet on 5 October 2026, raised SNIP-36 block-sized proof capacity to 1.1 billion L2 gas per transaction. Nansen describes Starknet as the first L2 to enable trustless BTC staking.
In October 2026, Starknet said it was actively considering becoming a Layer 1 and set 2027 as the target for becoming the first fully quantum-resistant network. A non-binding governance poll opened on 15 October 2026 and recorded 99.9% support for the research. Starknet has not confirmed a Layer 1 transition or published an implementation plan.
Current development activity and roadmap highlights
- Recent releases: v0.14.2 went live on 20 April 2026, and v0.14.4 on 5 October 2026. S-two 2.0.0 was released as an open-source toolkit on 27 January 2026.
- Developer activity: Santiment ranked Starknet first among Layer 2 projects by developer activity in June 2026.
- Planned: Staking v3 and v0.15.0, which the sources describe as targeted for late 2026 with a further 2x throughput increase and L1 finality under 1.5 hours.
- Under evaluation: The Layer 1 and quantum-resistance research, with 2027 as the stated target.