Starknet releases roadmap to address ongoing challenges, details inside

• Starknet’s user base expanded 8x over the last two months.
• The scaling solution grappled with low throughput and high transaction costs.

Launched in 2021, Ethereum’s [ETH] layer-2 solution (L2) Starknet has grabbed a lot of eyeballs in the first quarter of 2023. Based on the zero-knowledge rollup (zk-rollup) technology, the network recorded a sharp increase in development activity, with the number of core developers hitting an all-time high of 23 on 19 April.

Moreover, despite a decline in April, the user base has expanded 8x over the last two months. The growing interest in L2 solutions of late has also contributed to its growing numbers.

Source: Token Terminal

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Roadmap for the future

Starkware, the firm which developed Starknet, announced the 2023 roadmap for the rollup. The immediate focus for the coming months was to boost network performance in order to accommodate the anticipated rise in users and developers.

Starknet’s goals for the upcoming months: performance and UX! ?️

The milestones will focus on boosting performance to new heights, and delivering a seamless UX

By year's end, we'll achieve a robust network, transitioning to seamless governance in 2024!https://t.co/AaiKjrscWR

— StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) April 24, 2023

As the next step, the Starknet network was planning to roll out v0.12.0 in Q2 2023. According to the blog post, the upgrade was expected to reduce block execution time, thus significantly improving throughput and latency.

It was imperative for Starknet to work on this aspect as the number of transactions processed per second (TPS) has been consistently low.

Data from Dune highlighted that while Ethereum mainnet handled 11 TPS on average, the number of transactions on Starknet was less than one, significantly low for a rollup.

Source: Dune

Moreover, Starknet was also taking steps to reduce its transaction costs. As part of its v0.13.0, the main component of transaction cost – L1 (Ethereum) data cost, which accounts for 95% of transaction cost today, would be targeted using Starknet’s Volition (off-chain data availability).

In addition to the introduction of Volition, the scaling solution also hoped to profit from Ethereum’s EIP-4844, which was scheduled to be released in Q4 2023.

As per L2 Fees, transaction costs on Starknet were one of the highest among all rollups.

It required $0.31 to send ETH on Starknet as compared to $0.11 on Arbitrum [ARB], $0.20 on Polygon [MATIC] zkEVM, and $0.25 on Optimism [OP].

Token to be expected in 2024?

According to the network, decentralization will be prioritized in 2024 in terms of both network operation and decision-making. Colin Wu, a popular account on Twitter, opined it could be a giveaway that a token AirDrop could be expected in 2024.

Generally, networks launch governance tokens to enable holders to vote and propose changes regarding the functioning of the protocol. Last month, Arbitrum did the same while launching its AirDrop.