Starknet monthly recap #22: May
All you need to know about Starknet in May
Welcome to the 22nd edition of my monthly recap, where I bring you the most important updates and developments from the Starknet ecosystem!
📣 Important news of the month
🔹 Bitcoin use cases on Starknet are real
The ecosystem has shipped plenty of wild Bitcoin-native innovations this month.
The most important one? Without any doubt, Asset Runes: Bitcoin-native assets enabling Bitcoiners to diversify without ever leaving the Bitcoin chain, by offering 1:1 exposure to Ethereum tokens.
Asset Runes are minted on Bitcoin and redeemable at any time on Starknet.
The launch begins with USDC, making it the first stablecoin available natively on Bitcoin. You can already trade with it and provide liquidity on DotSwap.
Beyond USDC, more Asset Runes are coming soon: ETH, STRK, RWAs, NFTs…
On top of that, Runes from Bitcoin are now bridgable and tradable on Starknet, meaning Runes communities can finally enjoy a great UX and explore DeFi use cases with their assets.
Currently, only the 5 largest Runes are bridgeable to Starknet, but more will follow based on community demand.
You can already trade DOG, the top Bitcoin Rune, on:
And yes, DOG can also be used as a gas token on Starknet thanks to AVNU’s paymaster.
You can explore all Runes currently available on Starknet via this dashboard by Voyager.
Finally, the StarkWare exploration team has launched and open-sourced Broly, a trust-minimized Bitcoin inscription tool, usable directly from a Starknet wallet. It leverages a mechanism similar to storage proofs.
Note: this is just a PoC, meant to lay the foundation for developers to build fun and creative use cases.
What came in June was already great. What’s coming next is just as exciting
Here are 3 major things to watch:
Starknet integration into Xverse, the leading Bitcoin wallet: Bitcoiners will soon be able to seamlessly switch between Bitcoin and Starknet, and interact directly with the Starknet ecosystem.
Lombard is bringing LBTC, the top Bitcoin LST, into the Starknet ecosystem
Braavos is indirectly benefiting from Lightning network adoption: Square will accept Bitcoin Lightning payments across all its terminals, meaning Braavos users will be able to pay in real life throughout the U.S.
🔹 S-two: the fastest prover in the world is now live
S-two is now live and set to be integrated into Starknet in the coming months (~2 months). This new prover is 100x faster than the current one, dramatically boosting the efficiency of the Starknet stack.
It will enable faster and cheaper proofs across all Starknet-powered chains, and unlock entirely new use cases, including client-side proving. In fact, S-two is the first prover that makes client-side proving truly viable on everyday devices.
One of the first use cases? Paradex will use it to offer privacy-preserving trading to its users.
Across all benchmarks, S-two is simply the fastest prover, outperforming every top zkVM.
Lower is faster, and S-two is lower than anything else.
🔹 Starknet: the first pure Stage 1 ZK Rollup
Starknet has officially reached Stage 1, becoming the first ZK Rollup to hit a fully compliant Stage 1 status. (Scroll is currently labeled Stage 1 as well, but unless they make further changes, they may be downgraded back to Stage 0.)
ELI5: What do these “stages” mean?
Stage 0 - The rollup is centralized: Operators have full control, but Ethereum stores enough data to verify the system's state.
Stage 1 - Training wheels are off: Smart contracts replace centralized operators. A proof system is in place. Multiple independent entities can verify the system’s integrity. Most importantly: users can withdraw funds without relying on any operator. A security council still exists, but it's diverse and constrained.
Stage 2 - Full Ethereum-grade trustlessness: Users have 30 days to exit in case of a controversial upgrade. The security council can only act under extreme, on-chain-proven conditions. At this point, the rollup is as decentralized and secure as Ethereum itself.
For Starknet, you can dive into the detailed changes made between Stage 0 and Stage 1 here.
Next milestones in Starknet’s decentralization and security journey?
Reaching Stage 2
Rolling out Staking phases 2 & 3
Both are expected later this year. Phase 4, the final stage of STRK staking, is planned for early 2026, and will fully decentralize Starknet’s sequencer and prover operations.
📢 Starknet Ecosystem Update
🔹 Extended is migrating its Perp DEX from StarkEx to Starknet L2
This might be one of the biggest unlocks for the Starknet ecosystem in June: Extended is going live on Starknet mainnet (hopefully) this month.
This Perp DEX already offers a Hyperliquid-like experience, including:
Up to 100x leverage
Crypto pairs and TradFi markets: Gold, EUR, Brent, S&P 500, Nasdaq…
A community vault for LPs, currently yielding ~30% APR in USDC
An active XP campaign, Season 1 is already live
And soon, all of it will be natively accessible on Starknet.
🔹 Social Login & EVM Wallet Compatibility on Starknet
Cartridge has just rolled out its first social login, allowing users to create and access a Cartridge Controller (wallet) using their Discord account. More social login options are already in the works.
On top of that, users can now create a Cartridge Controller and interact on Starknet directly from EVM-compatible wallets like MetaMask, Rabby, Phantom, and others.
As a side note: Rosettanet, a project focused on bringing native EVM wallet compatibility to Starknet, is expected to go live in June or July at the latest.
🔹 T-Bills Yield Now Integrated into Opus' Staking Module
Opus has integrated U.S. Treasury yield (T-Bills) into its staking module; a first on Starknet.
By using CASH, the only native stablecoin live on Starknet, you can now tap into three yield sources at once:
Provide liquidity in the CASH/USDC pool on Ekubo to earn swap fees
Stake your LP token (as an NFT) on Opus to receive:
75% of protocol revenue
Additional yield sourced from U.S. T-Bills exposure
This marks the beginning of more advanced DeFi use cases on Starknet, going beyond basic DeFi use cases.
🔹 Pay in Real Life with Your Starknet Assets… and for Free
Argent has just launched the Argent Lite Card, a new free tier in its card lineup. This card is:
Self-custodial
Free to use (no hidden fees, no extra costs)
Offers 0.5% cashback
With it, you can spend your USDC held on Starknet anywhere Mastercard is accepted, all while staying in full control of your funds.
On this topic, Cavos is also working on a virtual card that will let users spend Starknet assets in real life.
🔹 Starknet gaming ecosystem looking more than gud here
Not 1, not 2, but 3 new gaming projects just went live on Starknet Mainnet. And we’re not talking small side projects:
Eternum: a fully onchain Civilization-style game with AI agents integration and a $50K prize pool
Pistols: a 1v1 fully onchain dueling game
Crimson Fate: a fully onchain rogue-like game
With these 3 new launches, the Starknet gaming scene is getting crowded — and harder to keep up with. That was true… until Cartridge Arcade came along.
Cartridge Arcade is the go-to hub for all games built with Dojo, Starknet’s game engine. It gives players everything they need, all in one place:
Game discovery
Player profiles and achievements
Activity feeds
Leaderboards
And if you’re a gamer or content creator, here’s your chance to shine and earn: Starknet x PlayGG Gaming Edition is live, a one-month campaign (until June 15) celebrating the Starknet gaming ecosystem with:
Interactive quests
Livestreams & content
Up to $100K in prizes to win
Don’t fade this one.
🔹 Starknet appchains going brrr
Three new projects have just been announced building with the SN Stack, Starknet’s appchain framework:
StarkPay - An all-in-one private payments infrastructure
Forge Agent – A marketplace for AI agents, enabling anyone to create, hire, and monetize autonomous AI agents
Eara - Building the backbone for compliant RWA trading in Europe
All three projects are part of the Karnot accelerator program.
On that note, Karnot recently hit over 7,000 TPS settled on Ethereum using with the SN Stack, a major milestone that showcases its scaling potential.
And no, 7k TPS isn’t the endgame. The Starknet stack is built to scale well beyond that.
Speaking of appchains…
Paradex, the first live appchain on Starknet, just updated its tokenomics to better align with the community. Notably: Paradigm’s 13.4% allocation won’t unlock fully at TGE, but instead follows a linear, performance-based schedule.
On top of that, ~85% of Paradex’s codebase has now been audited by Cairo Audit.
🔹 Alpha Zone 💅
9 new projects went live on Starknet Mainnet this month:
Eternum S1 – A fully onchain Civilization-style game with integrated AI agents
Stormbit – A lending/borrowing protocol offering up to 99% LTV with no liquidation
Pistols – A 1v1, fully onchain dueling game
Forge Yields – A cross-chain yield farming protocol
Copperx – A payment protocol enabling to pay users, vendors, or partners instantly in stablecoins on Starknet
Wolf Nation – A brand new NFT collection
Curvy – A privacy-focused protocol
Crimson Fate – A fully onchain rogue-like gaming project
OnChainGM – Say “gm” onchain (yes, it costs 0.5 STRK to say gm)
On Testnet, two new projects launched this past month:
defi.space – An arena for AI agents
Trivex – A Perp DEX + strategy analytics platform
Also spotted a new builder in the wild:
Uncap – A Bitcoin-backed stablecoin inspired by Liquity
📰 Some of the Best Content of the Month
🔹 Starknet: delivering the performance devs need, the UX users expect, and the integrity blockchains promise, all in one architecture
If you want to truly understand Starknet’s product-market fit, I strongly recommend you take 10 minutes to read this breakdown.
🔹 Starknet: shipping non-stop
Regardless of market conditions, Starknet keeps doing what it does best: shipping. Here’s a quick recap of everything the ecosystem has shipped over the past two months.
🔹 Starknet: all roads lead to Bitcoin
Want to know how Starknet could become a Bitcoin rollup? Here’s the full breakdown.
🔹 New to Eternum but want to play? No worries.
If you want to dive into Eternum, the fully onchain strategy game, here are all the noob-friendly guides to get started.
🔹 Still not building with the SN Stack?
Here’s everything you get when you choose to build your chain with the SN Stack.
None of the content of this newsletter is financial advice. Always do your own research.
Thank you for reading, and see you at the beginning of July for the next monthly recap ⏳
