StarkWare Proposes Staking to Introduce Tokenomics to Ethereum Layer 2 Starknet

If the starknet community approves the proposal, staking would be rolled out in stages, with the first requiring stakers to connect to Starknet

StarkWare is planning to introduce staking to Ethereum Layer 2 Starknet, the firm’s CEO Eli Ben-Sasson has revealed in a Starknet Improvement Proposal (SNIP).

If approved by the Starknet community, the proposal will see staking rolled out in stages.

The first stage will require stakers to connect to Starknet, interact with the staking contracts and follow the proposed protocol rules, according to a statement shared with The Defiant.

“With this proposal, Starknet is poised to become one of the first – or maybe even the first – major L2s to introduce staking,” the statement said. “That means to make a serious tokenomics-based commitment to the network being operated and run by the community for the community.”

The StarkWare team and the Starknet Foundation will also be rescinding any staking rewards during the first stage of the rollout, the firm said.

The move by StarkWare did not impact the price of the Starknet token today. The token has seen its price plummet along with the rest of the market in recent weeks.

STRK trades for $0.59 at press time, giving the token a market cap of $770 million.

Starknet total value locked (TVL) began 2024 on a near-vertical ascent, rising to $1.7 billion in March from $145 million in January, L2Beat data showed.

The Layer 2 has since shed more than half of its TVL, which now stands at $694 million.

Starknet ranks ninth among Layer 2s in terms of TVL, with Arbitrum and Base leading the sector at $15 billion and $6.6 billion, respectively. Adding staking to its network could propel Starknet up the Layer 2 total value locked rankings and help it buck the downtrend it has experienced since March.

StarkWare, which began pioneering zero-knowledge-based rollups in 2018 and has been scaling Ethereum through Starknet, has made explicitly ambitious moves as of late.

In early June, the firm unveiled plans to scale Bitcoin through the OP_CAT upgrade, a script from the Satoshi era that has now resurfaced. Ben-Sasson said he wanted to “seize the moment,” though the upgrade still needs to go through the rigorous Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process.