Introducing: Fee Mechanism — TL;DR StarkNet Alpha 0.8.0 presents the initial version of the fee mechanism (optional until StarkNet Alpha 0.9.0.) New API calls for estimating the transaction fee for obtaining the transaction trace, allowing better visibility and debugging capabilities Performance improvements to the StarkNet sequencer L1→L2 message cancellation Intro As shared in our roadmap, following…

Unlocking the Power of Compute on L2 — TL;DR GoL2 (based on the classic Conway’s Game of Life) is live on StarkNet testnet It is a powerful demonstration of how compute-hungry dApps, that are impractical on L1, can thrive on L2 What is the Game of Life? Going back to the 1940s, Computer Scientists were exploring the capabilities unlocked by Turing-complete programs, well before general…

A Blockchain Vision That Would Impress Narnia’s Creator, by Eli Ben-Sasson — CS Lewis said integrity is ‘doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.’ Cutting-edge cryptography will empower blockchain to manage everyone’s data in accordance with this ideal. I’m busy solving a problem that doesn’t need solving. That’s what people often say, upon realizing that I left the university…

Usability Delivered, StarkNet Team Moves to Next Challenge — TL;DR We are building StarkNet in steps, starting with establishing usability, then improving performance, and finally, moving on to decentralization We have achieved our first goal: usability. This means we delivered general computation in an Ethereum-like state (years before it was thought possible) We are now moving to stage 2 of…

Spoiler — massive version alert! — TL;DR StarkNet Alpha 0.7.0 released to Goerli; packed with improvements Contracts can now be upgraded using the Proxy Upgrade Pattern Contracts can now emit Events Support for the long-awaited Block Number and Block Timestamp system calls Intro We are happy to release Alpha 0.7.0, a version packed with new features and improvements…

Unleashing L2’s Computational Richness — TL;DR L2-native dApps can now flourish free of traditional L1 gas restrictions Introduction dApp developers have always faced severe constraints due to Ethereum’s (L1) block gas limit. It limits not only how those dApps operate but also what those dApps are capable of doing. Layer 2 (L2) offers dApp developers a computational…

It’s layers all the way down — TL;DR Recursive proofs open up surprising and novel design options Introducing L3, the application-specific layer, built recursively over L2 L3 serves the bespoke needs of apps, such as hyper-scalability, better control of the tech stack, and privacy StarkEx, currently serving customers as an L2 solution, will be ported to L3 Standalone…

Blockchain scalability has always been a heated topic. Nearly every blockchain network touts high numbers of transactions per second (TPS) as a selling point. However, TPS is not a valid metric to compare blockchain networks with — making it a challenge to evaluate their relative performance. Moreover, big TPS numbers…

TL;DR Alpha is live on Mainnet It supports general computation and composability Fast-growing community, developing tooling, and applications Additional features to be rolled out on an ongoing basis in the coming weeks Disclaimer: this is an Alpha version (read the fine print below) Introduction StarkNet Alpha is launching today on Ethereum Mainnet! …