In a talk at StarkCity Denver 2024, Eli Ben-Sasson, CEO of StarkWare, shared his vision for the future of Starknet and the broader blockchain ecosystem. The core message was clear: Starknet’s success will depend more on its integrity and values than just its technological prowess.
Below is a synopsis of the talk that explains how StarkWare is committed to building Starknet as a long-lasting public good that will serve as the foundation for a global society.
The rise of STARKs
The rapid adoption of STARK technology is evident. In 2020, the only player using STARKs was StarkWare, with StarkEx being the very first L2 validity rollup as a SaaS platform. This then opened the door to Starknet, a permissionless L2 validity rollup. Today, however, most major players in the blockchain space, including Polygon, zkSync, and Risc0, use STARKs because they recognize it as a better technology.
But behind Starknet lies a whole tech stack – Cairo, Sierra, native account abstraction, etc., which is currently only being used by Starknet. Within the next few years, we expect this tech stack to become the gold standard for nearly all Layer 2 validity rollup solutions. Just as Ethereum has become the de facto standard for L1s, Starknet is poised to achieve the same for L2s.
The era of Integrity Webs
As blockchain technology becomes increasingly commoditized, the question arises: Where will value accrue, and how will Starknet maintain its value proposition? Answer: value will flow to “Integrity Webs” that exhibit three essential properties: broadness, incentivized integrity, and public verifiability.
Broadness refers to the openness and accessibility of the network, ensuring that it remains decentralized and resistant to the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Incentivized integrity means that the system automatically distributes value to operators to maintain broad consensus about the integrity of the system. Public verifiability requires that all aspects of the protocol and state can be verified by anyone using publicly available means, promoting transparency and trust.
Starknet’s mission
Starknet’s ultimate purpose is to become the Integrity Web upon which global society runs, serving as the infrastructure for critical social functions such as governance, finance, and identity management.
But what is an Integrity Web?
Essentially its what a blockchain actually is. So, what is a blockchain?
The best way to describe what blockchains are is by referring to the purposes they serve in our society and economy and what our communities and economies really care about. They are things related to freedom and human dignity, human rights.
Another way to describe this is by looking at how societies and economies change. Traditionally, throughout history, new economic models have sprung up and a few fortunate early adopters have tended to take control a lot of them, extract value from them and made everyone else subservient to them. At some point, these people eventually rise up to challenge the model and try to make it more fair.
But then a new model arises and the cycle repeats itself. This happened with agrarian societies 10,000 years ago, then with the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, and now we’re living through the next phase of this cycle in the digital age. With the World Wide Web, a lot of what we value resides in the digital space, and again we have a new set of early adopters who have offered a lot of value, but along the way have shaped the space according to their needs.
Integrity Webs are about fighting back and are an attempt at making the digital space a little fairer. To define what an integrity Web is a little further, we’ll need to first define what social functions are.
In short, social functions are protocols and registries whose value necessitates broad social consensus regarding their integrity. These are things whose value is derived mostly or only from the existence of consensus that they are worth something. The prime example of this is money. Money is worthless unless we know that there is a broad consensus about the integrity of money and that it’s functioning as it should.
But there are a lot of other social functions related to governance, incorporations and decision making. At the moment, most of these are administered by central authorities. So for an Integrity Web to be worthy of administering these social functions instead of central authorities, they need to satisfy three conditions: broadness (or, decentralization), incentivized integrity, and public verifiability.
To achieve this goal, Starknet leverages the integrity of mathematics, specifically STARKs, to enforce integrity even on large operators. By using STARKs as a foundation, Starknet aims to create a digital world where integrity is never assumed but always demonstrated publicly.
Becoming a better Integrity Web
To become the leading Integrity Web, Starknet must continuously improve its broadness, incentivized integrity, and public verifiability. This involves actively combating the concentration of power, fine-tuning tokenomics to maximize broadness and integrity, and ensuring that all critical components of the protocol are open-source and use safe programming languages like Cairo. Additionally, Starknet must deliver high-performance, low-cost, and user-friendly validity proofs to ensure accessibility and usability for all participants in the ecosystem.
Underpinning these technical goals are the core values of lasting broadness, neutrality, and empowerment. Starknet must never be satisfied with the status quo and should constantly strive to dismantle centers of power and distribute resources fairly. It must remain neutral, allowing all social functions to be implemented without bias or discrimination. Most importantly, Starknet must focus on empowering and educating individuals about the importance of these values for society, fostering a culture of inclusion, understanding, and participation.
Starknet’s focus in 2024
In 2024, StarkWare is laser-focused on improving Starknet’s performance, costs, and scalability. There are plans to reach 500+ TPS by the end of the year and potentially even 1,000 TPS in the near future. Costs have already dropped significantly, possibly becoming the lowest in the market, making Starknet more accessible to a wider range of users and applications.
StarkWare is also pushing the boundaries of mathematics, having recently published groundbreaking work on Circle STARKs in collaboration with Polygon. This research paves the way for more efficient and secure scaling solutions. In addition, StarkWare is working on a new, fast, and decentralized sequencer, with a target of achieving 10,000 TPS in the future, further enhancing Starknet’s scalability and performance.
Equally impressive is the level of innovation happening outside of StarkWare itself. The ecosystem is flourishing with developments such as the Cairo Verifier, a thriving gaming ecosystem, STARKs on Bitcoin, AI applications using Cairo, and the emergence of appchain stacks and multiple data availability layers.
The path forward
As Starknet continues to evolve and mature, it is clear that the project’s success will depend on its ability to uphold its integrity and values while delivering cutting-edge technology. By fostering a broad, inclusive, and empowering ecosystem, Starknet aims to become the backbone of a more decentralized, transparent, and equitable digital society.
