ETH Layer 2 Service StarkNet Goes Live, Promises 100x Cheaper Gas Fees

Cheaper gas at last, and it’s all thanks to ZK-rollups. StarkNet’s most advanced Layer-2 validity rollup promises higher throughput and lower gas fees, up to 100 times lower than Layer-1s.

StarkNet’s employment of Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) and validity proofs could be the answer to solving the highly problematic scaling issues faced by the Ethereum network, without compromising on security.

Transaction Costs Down, Confirmation Rates Up

ZK-rollups are a favourable scaling solution for Ethereum because they drastically reduce transaction costs while speeding up the time it takes for transactions to be confirmed. The way they do this is by bundling, or “rolling up” transactions together for processing off-chain. Once verified, they are moved back on-chain and recorded as a single transaction. This reduces the number of transactions needed to be written to the blockchain in order to verify a single block, therefore significantly reducing the cost.

Unlike optimistic rollups, ZK-rollups use “validity proofs”. Validity rollups are much faster because they instantly prove transactions. This greatly speeds up the transactions per second (TPS) rate and makes the network run much faster. StarkNet transactions are estimated to reduce energy consumption anywhere between 200 to 200,000 times that of alternative chains.

Alchemy’s Integration of StarkNet

StarkNet and Alchemy are both pioneering the Web3 future, addressing two of the biggest challenges facing permissionless blockchains: StarkNet is tackling scalability, as Alchemy provides a complete platform for developers that reduces the complexity and costs of building on blockchain.

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and president of StarkNet

StarkWare announced on Twitter that its layer-2 StarkNet has now been integrated by leading blockchain development platform Alchemy. The partnership will allow Web3 developers to build decentralised apps (dApps) using the Alchemy suite and utilise StarkNet’s cutting-edge ZK-rollup technology.

We are happy to announce our strategic partnership with @AlchemyPlatform!

It reflects the shared commitment of our teams to build #StarkNet and provide developers with the full suite of Alchemy’s proprietary platform infrastructure, products, and serviceshttps://t.co/qkImv9AiJJ pic.twitter.com/Ah5zMFyBxe

— StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) March 7, 2022

StarkNet has its own open-source browser wallet and Chrome extension, Argent X. Other platforms are also integrating StarkNet; last month, for example, Opera browser launched its own Ethereum Layer-2 web wallet powered by StarkNet.