The story of Layer 2 is so clear, next season will be the time for Layer 2 to explode. These Layer 2s are growing strongly and surpassing the Layer 1s that made waves last season such as Solana, Avalanche, Fantom,…
The most prominent are Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup and zkRollup technologies. Among them, Optimistic has a more developed ecosystem with Arbitrum and Optimism. But zkRollup is highly appreciated by Vitalik Buterin in terms of technology and has strong growth potential in the future.
StarkNet and zkSync are the two most developed projects with zkRollup technology. Initially, the StarkNet ecosystem was more developed when many Native projects were built, but after zkSync Era launched, everything changed. The StarkNet ecosystem is somewhat less developed than its competitors. Thereby we can see the impact of EVM on current platforms. So how is the StarkNet ecosystem developing? Let’s find out in this article!
To better understand StarkNet, people can refer to some of the documents below:
- What is Layer 2? Complete Guide to Layer 2 Solutions
- What is StarkNet (STRK)? StarkNet Cryptocurrency Overview
- What is StarkNet L3? StarkNet L3 Models & Differences
Overview of On-Chain Metrics on StarkNet
Total Value Locked (TVL)
StarkNet is a Layer 2 with a TVL of $120 million, this number is calculated from all assets on the network. As for TVL in DeFi StarkNet alone, it is only about $34 million. This number is too modest for a Layer 2 development from 2021.
StarkNet is ranked 37th according to TVL for Smart Contract platforms. This position is far behind its competitor zkSync Era at position 18 and behind Layer 2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync Era. This result is because StarkNet is developing a separate ecosystem that is not compatible with EVM, so there is no Multichain project in the transferred EVMs.
Bridge TVL
With the information above, we see that the TVL of the bridge available on StarkNet is about $86 million. This amount of assets is distributed on bridges such as StarkGate, Orbiter, Layerswap,… The bridge to StarkNet is also very limited due to incompatibility with EVM.
The total amount of assets transferred back and forth between StarkNet and other chains (Ethereum) reached approximately $158 million. The assets being circulated are ETH, USDC, USDT, DAI, WBTC. Among them, ETH is the asset used to move the most.
DApps
There are about 161 dApps developing and operating on Layer 2 StarkNet. Of these, there are 85 dApps officially Mainnet but only 11 dApps belong to the DeFi field. StarkNet’s ecosystem has all kinds of segments and is very diverse in products, but the number of products supporting DeFi is too small.
While DeFi is the backbone and has the most powerful application in the Crypto market, the small number of DeFi dApps on StarkNet is due to incompatibility with EVM, while the majority of active dApps are on the EVM environment. Although this direction is somewhat difficult, the projects being developed in the StarkNet ecosystem are all Native and bring real users to StarkNet.
Total Address
There are nearly 800 thousand wallet addresses on the StarkNet network, these addresses are created from Argent and Braavos wallets. This number has grown by more than 100 thousand addresses compared to a month ago thanks to the recent V0.12.0 upgrade that makes the StarkNet network smoother.
Although this number has grown strongly in recent times, it is only about half the number of addresses on the zkSync Era network. Because zkSync Era is compatible with EVM and integrated into Metamask, it is easy for users to access and use.
Active Users
Since April 2023, the number of daily active users began to grow dramatically. Thanks to technology and market upgrades Fomo goes Retroactive. At its peak, the StarkNet network had more than 350,000 active addresses, but now the number of users has begun to decrease due to the gloom of the market and there is no longer Fomo.
Partly, the StarkNet ecosystem does not have good projects and products and does not attract users. The user base also has no reason to use the StarkNet network other than to hunt for Airdrops. Another reason is that an emerging Layer 2 built by Coinbase is taking all the attention from the market.
TPS
Thanks to the recent upgrade, StarkNet is running around 8 TPS. Compared to competitor zkSync Era, StarkNet is somewhat inferior, but it appears to outperform Layer 2s using Optimistic Rollup. But this is not Endgame yet, Layer 2 can speed up even faster, it’s just a matter of time.
Fees
The StarkNet network supports ETH transfers across wallets for approximately $0.07 and transaction fees of approximately $0.2. These numbers are for reference only, because they change continuously according to Ethereum’s Gas Fee.
Compared to zkSync Era, StarkNet is also somewhat disadvantaged due to the heavier nature of zk-STARK proof technology and higher storage costs. And of course, using zk proof, it also costs more than Optimistic Rollup solutions.
Updates Revolving around the StarkNet Ecosystem
- January 30, 2023: StarkNet announces its source code plan, that is, makes public the Code related to StarkNet to implement the plan to develop a Sequencer network. Currently, StarkNet is using StarkEx Sequencers which have poor scalability. The new Sequencers are built on the Papyrus platform, StarkNet Full Node capable of supporting many languages and especially Cairo-VM integration. As the Sequencer network grows, the platform will become more decentralized and will be able to rent Sequencers to Appchains.
- July 12, 2023: StarkNet successfully updated version V0.12.0 Helps the network have faster and more efficient processing speed. This is an important step to implement upcoming updates such as V0.12.1, V0.13.0,… In addition, the update also supports programming with the Rust language and provides security for the system.
- July 19, 2023: Launched the StarkNet Stack toolkit that allows building Layer 2 Appchains using zkRollup technology developed by StarkNet. But in the future, these Layer 2 will be moved to Layer 3 operating on Layer 2 StarkNet.
- August 22, 2023: StarkWare’s STARK Prover proof technology is officially developed as open source with the name Stone. The release of the source code for this technology was mentioned earlier this year (2023). When the StarkNet Stack is launched, it is only a matter of time before the public release of the STARK proof code.
Some Outstanding Projects in the StarkNet Ecosystem
JediSwap
JediSwap is an AMM built and developed on StarkNet. The protocol developed by the community is called Mesh. Jedi brings a product that helps users exchange Tokens on the StarkNet network. It also helps liquidity providers earn passive income providing liquidity to JediSwap’s trading pool.
When adding liquidity to the Pool, providers need to be careful to provide it at the rate of the existing Pool so as not to impact the price, and the protocol will only accept liquidity at that rate. For example, Pool WETH-USDC has a ratio of 1:3, the supplier also adds this ratio to not affect the price.
JediSwap has been live on the Starknet mainnet since November 30, 2022. In a short period of time, JediSwap has become the #1 protocol on Starknet by TVL, transaction volume, and many other Onchain metrics.
SithSwap
SithSwap is an AMM DEX built on StarkNet and has a TVL of around $2.7 million. SithSwap’s AMM combines both Uniswap V2’s volatile asset backing model and Curve Finance’s stable pair. Therefore, SithSwap has good support for all asset types present on StarkNet.
In SithSwap, liquidity providers receive many incentives, based on the commitment they can earn: 100% of the fees generated by the protocol, SITH/xSITH emissions, 3rd party bribes, etc. And with veToken’s model, it creates a very vibrant bribery market.
SithSwap received investment from large funds such as Lemniscap, GSR, DWEB3,… Proving that this is a quality and important project for the StarkNet ecosystem.
zkLend
zkLend is a Lending Pool protocol that has a TVL of nearly 4.5 million and is continuing to grow. Because it is a Lending Pool protocol, lenders will provide liquidity to the Pool and borrowers post collateral to borrow assets from the Pool.
zkLend also releases separate products for DeFi users and products for businesses. And zkLend uses Pragma’s price feed (Oracle) to support tracking loan positions for liquidation. The project received huge investment from Delphi, StarkWare, Amber Group, CMS, DWEB 3,…
StarkNet Ecosystem Projection
The StarkNet ecosystem is less developed than other Layer 1 and Layer 2. But because it is not compatible with EVM, projects on StarkNet are mostly Native and are heavily supported by StarkNet and StarkWare. StarkNet going in this direction may be due to vision or plans for the future.
The StarkNet network continues to grow, and as it becomes more perfect, more developers and communities will come to the ecosystem. In particular, StarkNet supporting the Rust language and building an open Sequencer system will bring a lot of attraction to the community.
The development of Appchains will also be a catalyst to make the StarkNet ecosystem explode. Although at present the Appchains are all Layer 2, when they connect with each other they will help each other develop. In the future, when Appchains or protocols developed on the StarkEx platform convert to Layer 3, they will all belong to the StarkNet ecosystem. From there, creating an extremely large and powerful ecosystem.
Upcoming is the appearance of Kakarot zkEVM is a zkEVM written in Cairo. It aims to allow users to take advantage of the expanded benefits of StarkNet’s aggregation while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem. Therefore, Kakarot can be used to run Ethereum smart contracts on Starknet.
This step will make StarkNet explode because dApps on EVM can switch to StarkNet the same way Aurora has supported Near. No matter what, EVM is still home to the most developing projects in the Blockchain space.
Summary
StarkNet is clearly inferior to other Layer 2s. But the way StarkNet focuses is on infrastructure as well as technology and an extremely long-term vision. They focus on developing quality products rather than quantity.
This is just the beginning and the road ahead for StarkNet to develop is very long. StarkNet will continue to develop technology with upgrades V0.12.5, V0.13.0,… supporting the EVM execution environment. Especially the vision of bringing Appchains and protocols built on StarkEx into Layer 3, it will make StarkNet more exciting than ever.
Thus, I have provided all information about the StarkNet ecosystem recently. This update is an overview of the StarkNet ecosystem, hopefully the article brings a lot of useful information.
