Starknet monthly recap #14: August

All you need to know about Starknet in August

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Starknet OG
September 01, 2024

Starknet monthly recap #14: August

Welcome to the 14th edition of my monthly recap, where I bring you the most important updates and developments from the Starknet ecosystem.

Once again, a lot happened this month, so hang on! 😎

📣 Important news of the month

🔹 Parallel Execution and Block Packing: A major leap forward in UX

Starknet v0.13.2, aka Bolt, is now live on Starknet mainnet, significantly increasing Starknet's TPS capacity to between 250 and 500 and drastically reducing confirmation times from over 15 seconds to ~2 seconds for most transactions.

The result? Starknet is now one of the cheapest and fastest L2s to use 🌬️ 

🔹 Starknet’s road to decentralization: STRK Staking

Starknet v0.13.2 is live; which is great! But what’s next now? We won’t have to wait long because STRK staking is coming soon—very soon 🤓 

The Testnet is scheduled for September (in the following few weeks), with the Mainnet launch expected in October. And for all STRK holders, keep an eye on the Starknet forum; the first ever vote on Mainnet for STRK holders will take place soon and regarding a crucial topic: parameters of STRK staking!

For those interested in delving deeper into STRK staking, here’s a comprehensive Q&A.

🔹 Bitcoin cooking 🧑‍🍳

It might still be hard to believe for some, but yes, Starknet is now connected to Bitcoin 👑 Or more precisely, it will be in the future; roughly 6 months after the potential activation of OP_CAT on Bitcoin.

StarkWare, the main contributor to the Starknet network, is working tirelessly to turn this vision into reality. Recent advancements include a significant optimization in the StarkWare OP_CAT-based Circle STARK verifier, reducing multiplication costs by no less than 70% 🤯

And because for StarkWare there’s always room for more optimization, a bounty campaign is planned soon to push this even further.

StarkWare has also launched a new project: Shinigami, a Bitcoin Script VM in Cairo. This project is essentially a library enabling the generation of STARK proofs for generic Bitcoin Script computation.

For those interested in StarkWare's work on Bitcoin, here’s an excellent podcast from The Rollup featuring StarkWare’s CEO.

🔹 Dune has found its desert on Starknet

Dune, probably the most famous and widely used crypto data platform, has finally integrated Starknet! This means you can now easily create dashboards and monitor all Starknet-related data and the ones of your favorite Starknet dApps! Here’s a list of all the dashboards I’ve found:

🔹 DeFi Spring distribution schedule changes

DeFi Spring has changed its distribution cycle from 2 weeks to 1 week. This means you can now claim your STRK rewards every week (every Friday) instead of every two weeks 🫰 

🔹 StarkGate: More and easier!

StarkGate, Starknet's official bridge, has listed 5 new tokens: ARB, BNB, NEAR, SHIB, and PEPE. This means users can now bridge and use these tokens directly on Starknet!

Additionally, users can now bridge to Starknet through StarkGate using MetaMask (Snap) wallet! So you can now use MetaMask to bridge to Starknet and swap on AVNU.

🔹 New updates from your favorite programing language

The new version of Cairo is now live: v2.8.0! It includes numerous additions and optimizations, such as language server improvements, using package versions instead of GitHub tags when specifying dependencies, the introduction of a range operator, and more! Here’s everything you need to know about it.

Also, a new Cairo Playground is live!

🔹 New CEX integration

The Starknet network is now integrated into Bitget, meaning you can now deposit and withdraw ETH on Starknet through it.

🔹 Starknet official dApps hub!

Before diving into ecosystem news, I have two gifts for you 🎁

First, here’s the Starknet dApps page, which gathers the majority of projects building in the Starknet ecosystem.

And here are three ecosystem maps, compartmentalized and cooked by yours truly 💅

📢 Starknet Ecosystem Update

🔷 Cartridge Secures New Funding Round

Cartridge has successfully raised $7.5M in a Series A round led by Bitkraft, with participation from StarkWare, Fabric, and others 💰

🔷 AVNU’s Exact Amount Out Swap Feature

AVNU has just launched a new feature that greatly enhances both your UX and the efficiency of your trades: Exact Amount Out Swap.

This feature allows you to specify the exact amount of a token you want to buy.

Speaking of AVNU, it’s a good time to remind you that you can trade on the platform while paying gas fees with approximately 10 different tokens, not just ETH and STRK. Additionally, AVNU’s Paymaster infrastructure currently powers around 15 projects on Starknet, significantly improving the UX across the entire Starknet ecosystem 🤯

🔷 Realms Ecosystem grows

A lot has been happening for the Lords 🤴

Notably, the Lordship bridge is now live, allowing you to bridge your Realms NFTs from Ethereum to Starknet!

Moreover, a new funding round has been launched by BiblioDAO. You have until September 6th, 2024, to submit your proposal. As a reminder, here’s what this funding round entails:

An open round where builders are encouraged to propose any idea they believe will benefit the BiblioDAO ecosystem. Anyone with an ETH address is welcome to propose. Once the proposing period is complete, BiblioDAO members will vote on their favorite proposals. The proposals with the most votes will get funded.

🔷 A project building an L3 on top of Starknet? 👀

Yes, yes, yes! While L3s aren’t yet possible on Starknet, as certain stacks are still needed, Dope Wars, the gaming ecosystem, is already working on its vision to become an L3 on top of Starknet. They’ve received a 200,000 STRK grant from the Starknet Foundation to advance this vision and accelerate their development.

🔷 Ekubo Latest Updates

The most advanced AMM on the market continues to ship nonstop. Here are the latest updates: the oracle extension is now ready for audit, the revenue buybacks contract audit began on August 26th, Ekubo contracts have been updated to Cairo 2.7.1, and Ekubo is hiring new engineers 🧑‍🔬 

Bonus: On-chain realized volatility oracle is now live 👀

Told you: they are shipping nonstop 🚢 

🔷 Haiko’s Solver

Haiko, Ekubo’s direct competitor focusing on UX and making LP access easier and more passive for everyone, has just launched its own Solvers, introducing several powerful features: Zero-Cost Rebalancing, Impermanent Loss Caps, Private Vaults, and Pool-level Governance. The solvers have already been audited by Nethermind.

🔷 New Opportunities for DeFi Farmooors 🧑‍🌾 

The first opportunity comes from Nimbora, allowing you to access Lido’s services with your ETH directly from Starknet (currently generating 20% APY)

The second comes from a new strategy by STRKfarm, which enables you to maximize your rewards passively using your USDC (currently generating 28% APY)

And here’s a little bonus: you can now passively enjoy the benefits of concentrated liquidity on JediSwap as an LP through Teahouse’s vault.

🔹 Alpha Zone 💅

Here are some new interesting projects popping up on Starknet:

  • Starknet Phone: The new Exploration Project

  • zkRamp: A peer-to-peer onramp/offramp protocol with no KYC, no fees, and direct transfers from your bank or preferred payment app

  • Spirit_Wallet: A Telegram wallet for Starknet

  • TurboPumpFun: A Pumpfun like platform for the Starknet ecosystem

Three projects have launched on Testnet:

Additionally, two other projects have recently launched their MVPs:

Two projects powered by StarkEx have also launched on mainnet:

  • Closed mainnet: x10, a Perp DEX powered

  • Public mainnet: edgeX, another Perp DEX

🧑‍🌾 What did I do on Starknet in August?

Nothing particularly new here, except that I took advantage of the dip to keep accumulating Ekubo. Speaking of it, here’s a great article by Delphi Digital that provides a detailed analysis of Ekubo and compares it to DEXs of other chains.

As for the rest, I’m continuing to farm DeFi Spring primarily through three dApps:

  • Carmine: where I’m LPing the majority of my STRK, earning an APY fluctuating between 30% and 45%.

  • Nimbora: with my ETH, yielding around 15% APR.

  • Vesu: where I’ve allocated my USDC (10% APY), along with a smaller portion of STRK (13% APY) and ETH (10% APY)

Trust me fam: life is good when you generate passive income 🧑‍🌾 

📰 Some of the Best Content of the Month

🔷 Starknet mastering the shipping narrative

Here’s a quick recap of everything Starknet and its ecosystem have shipped in recent months (spoiler: a lot… 🤯)!

🔷 French Podcast about Starknet with Abdel (ecosystem Lead at StarkWare) and Crypto Picsou

Here’s an English recap of the key takeaways from this podcast (plus a few of my own insights 👀).

🔷 Starknet v0.13.2 explained

Parallel Execution and Block Packing are now live on Mainnet, providing tremendous UX improvements. But WTF are these features, and why are they big? Here’s your answer in a tweet, and here in a video 🧑‍🎓 

🔷 In the shoes of a Starknet dev 🧑‍💻

The health of an ecosystem is closely tied to its developer community—without devs, there are no dApps or tools, and without those, no users or new devs. This is especially crucial on Starknet, where developers need to learn and master a new programming language: Cairo. Here’s a survey showing what current Starknet devs think of Cairo 🤔 

🔷 4 major DeFi dApps on Starknet

Here’s a thread showcasing 4 Starknet dApps offering unique opportunities and cutting-edge UX 💅 

🔷 Starknet Stack and CairoVM for the win

Check out this thread highlighting Starknet’s unique ZK stack advantages compared to EVM-based ecosystems 💪 

None of the content of this newsletter is financial advice. Always do your own research.

Thank you for reading, and see you in September for the next monthly recap. ⏳

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