Starknet is swiftly climbing the ranks as a key competitor in Ethereum’s bustling Layer 2 (L2) landscape. This week, it has often secured the second most active L2 position by transaction volume, according to L2beat. Significantly, Starknet achieved an all-time high throughput of 9 transactions per second (TPS) on September 3.
Last week, Starknet wallet provider Braavos momentarily stirred the pot. It published and promptly removed a post announcing the impending release of Starknet’s much-anticipated STRK token. Quick-fingered social media users captured screenshots of the post, headlined “Why STRK will be Different from Other Tokens.” Consequently, activity surrounding Starknet surged.
Moreover, according to Ultra Sound Money, Starknet ranked among the top five Ethereum protocols in terms of ETH burned over the past week. This led to the permanent destruction of 415 ETH.
The arena of Ethereum Layer 2s is heating up. While Arbitrum and Optimism led the charge in 2022, zkSync Era launched the first-ever zkEVM, followed by Polygon zkEVM and Linea from Consensys. zkSync Era processed 29.1 million transactions in the last 30 days, closely trailing Ethereum mainnet’s 30.6 million. Additionally, Era holds the third-largest total value locked (TVL) at $389 million.
Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 solution, is making waves as well. One month after its general release, Base ranked fourth in TVL, boasting $383 million. Two weeks ago, Base outperformed Era in throughput, logging nearly 16 TPS. However, throughput has since settled at around 4 TPS.
Arbitrum and Optimism still dominate the L2 ecosystem, accounting for 80% of the TVL with $5.2 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively. Nonetheless, when combined with its Superchain sister network, Optimism, Base would secure the second rank among L2s in terms of activity.
Starknet isn’t just competing; it’s innovating. On September 6, the company announced that its entire tech stack had gone open source, following the release of version 0.12.2 to mainnet just a day prior. This move aligns with Starknet’s commitment to open-source development, as announced in a February blog post. Hence, the decision to open-source its prover on September 1 was a precursor to the STRK coin’s public debut, setting the stage for full decentralization.
In summary, Starknet is making impressive strides in a fiercely competitive L2 environment, further solidifying its position as a force to be reckoned with.
