StarkWare is Following a Path to Full Decentralization
Leading layer-2 (L2) solutions provider StarkWare has announced that it will be making its software open-source. The total value locked across the L2 ecosystem has been climbing higher since the beginning of 2023.
On Feb. 5, layer-2 technology firm StarkWare revealed plans to make its Stark Prover software open source.
The Israeli-based company said the move will “boost accessibility to developers, promote collaboration within the community, and offer other benefits.”
The Prover is the engine used by the firm to roll up hundreds of thousands of transactions.
Eli Ben-Sasson, president and co-founder of Starkware, said, “we think of the Prover as the magic wand of Stark technology. It wondrously generates the proofs that allow unimaginable scaling.”
The Path to StarkWare Decentralization
The firm scales Ethereum by using zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. ZK rollups are a way of proving the validity of a statement without revealing what the statement is. This enables the processing of partial transaction data off the root chain decreasing its load. The result of these rolled-up transactions is much faster throughput while maintaining security.
Furthermore, the Stark Prover will be renamed the “Starknet Prover” and placed under an Apache 2.0 license. The firm has already begun open source some elements, including Cairo 1.0, Papyrus Full Node, and the new StarkNet Sequencer.
Open-sourcing the Prover is the final stage in the decentralization of the ecosystem. The firm summarized:
“Open-sourcing the Starknet Prover will take place right before Starknet will be ready for full decentralization. This way, the Starknet stack will be fully open-sourced, as is appropriate for a decentralized, permissionless Layer 2 network.”
At an event in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Ben-Sasson said, “this is a landmark moment for scaling Ethereum, and in a wider sense for cryptography.”
StarkWare provides scaling tech to several crypto platforms, including ImmutableX, Sorare, and dYdX. The firm has processed 327 million transactions, minted 95 million NFTs, and settled approximately $824 billion.
StarkWare announced its StarkNet token and Foundation in June 2022 and has been striving for full decentralization since.
Layer-2 Ecosystem Outlook
Total value locked (TVL) across the layer-2 ecosystem has been steadily rising since the beginning of the year. According to L2beat, there has been an increase of 40% since Jan. 1, resulting in a TVL of $5.73 billion today.
Arbitrum One and Optimism are the industry leaders with a joint market share of more than 80%. Additionally, StarkNet TVL has also increased 40% since Jan. 1 and is currently $6.84 million, as reported by L2beat.
Disclaimer
BeInCrypto has reached out to company or individual involved in the story to get an official statement about the recent developments, but it has yet to hear back.
