Starknet staking economics and ZK rollup market competition

Starknet fee management and staking economics

Starknet v0.13.5 reduces transaction costs through stateful compression to optimize blob usage. This version uses aliases to reference storage keys, which minimizes redundancy in state updates. I see that the upgrade introduces L2 gas to separate execution costs from L1 data costs. L2 gas covers native resources, L1 gas covers L2 to L1 messages, and L1 data gas covers the cost for the sequencer to submit state diffs as blobs on L1. This separation makes fees more predictable as Ethereum blob demand rises. Users who participate in STRK staking must follow a 7-day lockup period to unstake their tokens. This period prevents immediate liquidity for those who need to withdraw.

Validators must lock 20,000 STRK to run a full node, while delegators have no minimum requirement. While Starknet uses STARK proofs to achieve high throughput, developers must rewrite existing Solidity contracts into Cairo, which creates a different workload compared to the EVM-compatible experience of Scroll or zkSync. BTC stakers delegate tokenized BTC to validators and earn STRK rewards. The staking power weight for BTC is 0.25, while STRK holds 0.75 of the total weight. BTC stakers have a strong interest in increasing the total STRK staked because a higher STRK stake increases the total amount of STRK minted. The current STRK price is $0.0576 after a 48% weekly gain, though the token remains 62% lower than its level a year ago.

Comparison of ZK rollup performance and compatibility

The ZK rollup market shows significant differences in technology and developer adoption. Starknet uses the Cairo language and STARK proofs to reach peaks of 10,000 TPS. Most developers prefer Solidity, which makes the transition to Cairo difficult. zkSync Era is a Type 4 zkEVM that supports Solidity and has over $4 billion in total value secured. Scroll is a Type 3 zkEVM that focuses on bytecode-level equivalence. I observe that Scroll’s value secured is much lower than the levels in Linea or zkSync Era.

The distinction between SNARK and STARK proof systems dictates the cost and speed of each chain. SNARKs are small and fast to verify but require a trusted setup. STARKs are larger but use hash-based cryptography that is post-quantum secure. zkSync Era uses a RISC-V prover called Airbender to produce sub-second block proofs on standard GPUs. This technology aims to reduce costs to $0.0001 per transfer. Linea is a Type 2 zkEVM that uses a gnark-based SNARK proof system. ZK rollups collectively hold approximately $3.5 billion in value. Arbitrum leads the L2 market with $16.8 billion in TVL, while Base has $10 billion.

Security maturity and ecosystem shifts

Security in the ZK space depends on proof systems and sequencer decentralization. Starknet holds Stage 1 status on L2BEAT, which means users have a working exit path. Most general-purpose zkEVMs remain at Stage 0. This means users must trust the operator. I find the concentration of liquidity in certain rollups to be a significant factor. Polygon zkEVM shut down on July 1, 2026. You should verify the L2BEAT stage of any network before you deposit assets.

The industry saw many projects disappear from the top lists. Sorare moved to Solana and dYdX left for its own chain. Lighter remains a single application that secures more value than Linea, zkSync Era, and Scroll combined. Will the market focus more on general-purpose platforms or specialized applications? Lighter is both a chain and an application that runs a perpetual exchange in custom ZK circuits.