What is Starknet?

What is Starknet?

Starknet is a type of Ethereum scaling solution known as a ZK rollup. ZK-rollups can scale to millions, even billions of people. And the more people use them, the cheaper they become. All this without compromising on Ethereum's security and decentralization! 

That’s why Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says: “in the medium to long term ZK rollups will win out in all use cases”

Argent X is the most popular and only open-source wallet for Starknet. 

What are the benefits of Starknet? 

Unlike other ZK rollups, like zkSync, Starknet isn’t a “zkEVM” - this means smart contracts (which power your favorite Dapps on Ethereum, like Uniswap and OpenSea) have to be written in Starknet’s own programming language - Cairo.

Cairo is an incredibly powerful language optimized for ZK rollups. It allows you to do everything you can on an EVM and much more, as computations are significantly cheaper.

This creates entirely new possibilities that previously weren’t possible on blockchains, such as true blockchain games!

As Cairo is a new programming language, developers that would like to start coding for Starknet may be put off from doing so as they would have to learn Cairo. Luckily smart contracts written for Ethereum can be converted into Cairo using a “transpiler”, like Nethermind’s Warp, but they won’t be fully optimized for Starknet.  

How to use Starknet

To access the entire Starknet ecosystem and to benefit from cheap and instant transactions, you first need a wallet like Argent X. Without a wallet, you are unable to use Starknet as it’s not possible to access the network and all the amazing Dapps through an exchange like Coinbase or Binance. 

Starknet Dapps

Since launching, the Starknet ecosystem has exploded with activity, with exciting Dapps getting built each day, covering DeFi, NFTs, Gaming, DAOs, and much, much more. 

Find and explore the best Starknet Dapps by visiting Dappland. Dappland gives you more information about the teams behind the Dapps, audit information, whether the Dapp has a token or not, and many other things that you may find useful.  

Who’s behind Starknet?

Starknet has been developed by StarkWare, the team behind StarkEx and STARKs. StarkEx is another type of scaling solution for Ethereum, but it is designed for specific applications, whereas Starknet is designed to be general purpose.

StarkWare has received funding from the Ethereum Foundation and top-tier investors, such as Paradigm, Sequoia, and Vitalik Buterin. 

Starknet has been live since November 2021.

Learn more about the Starknet team with this awesome podcast with their founders.