Starknet: Unlocking Web3 with a Web2-like UX
How Starknet is becoming the ultimate onboarding Hub for users and projects alike
As the blockchain landscape continues to evolve, Starknet is establishing itself as a leader in bridging the gap between the complexities of Web3 and the seamless user experiences of Web2.
The recent flippyflop campaign, masterfully led by Cartridge, has showcased to the world the real capacity of Starknet on Mainnet, highlighting both its impressive pure performance (TPS, speed, and gas fees) and its ability to eliminate traditional entry barriers like wallet creation, seed phrase management, and gas fees. Imagine logging into a gaming or DeFi platform with the ease of your favorite Web2 apps: no wallets, no seed phrases, no gas fees. Thanks to Starknet’s native Account Abstraction, this future is now possible.
This article will explain why Starknet is ready for mass scale, no longer a bottleneck but a real advantage for your project, and is offering a Web2-like UX for everyone.
1. Starknet’s potential as an onboarding hub for the entire ecosystem
One of the most impressive achievements during the Flippy Flop campaign was how Cartridge completely abstracted blockchain complexities for users on Starknet.
No need to create a wallet or keep a seed phrase
No need to bridge to Starknet or hold any assets
No need to sign transactions
No need to pay gas fees
Simply create an account with the Cartridge controller (the same experience as opening a new account on your favorite Web2 applications, taking only 10 seconds) and start playing.
All of this is possible thanks to Starknet’s native Account Abstraction features:
Passkeys remove the need to manage a traditional wallet with a seed phrase.
Session Keys eliminate the need to sign transactions, allowing users to simply enjoy the game.
Paymaster enables users to interact on Starknet without paying gas fees or holding tokens in their wallets.
Here what this means for users:
The Paymaster model is especially feasible because transactions on Starknet are extremely low-cost (averaging between $0.003 and $0.001 in gas fees). This enables projects to subsidize gas fees for users, much like platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, which don’t charge users for infrastructure costs. Now, this Web2-like experience is fully achievable onchain, and I believe it will become the standard in the future, especially as Starknet fees continue to decrease.
As time goes on, we’re moving closer to a world where Starknet applications—whether gaming or DeFi—provide users with a seamless onboarding experience and a UX on par with Web2, along with all the added benefits of Web3. The next big step in our ecosystem is zkLogin, enabling you to interact with our dApps using accounts like Google, Twitch, and others. I believe this is coming soon.
TL;DR: Starknet is the endgame, delivering all the benefits of Web3 with the simplicity of Web2 UX. The Flippy Flop campaign was just an experiment—and a successful one at that. Now, get ready for more UX enhancements and broader implementations across the entire Starknet ecosystem.
2. Metrics: Breaking records
Peak TPS
Previous record: 503
New record: 857
Sustained TPS over a full day
Previous record: ~20 TPS
New record: 127 —> making Starknet the first L2 to achieve this metric, ahead of Base (80 TPS), and by far the leading Validity Rollup, surpassing zkSync (62 TPS).
Gas fees
Total transactions: 9,726,562
Total cost: $27,385
Average gas fee per transaction: $0.0028
All of this was achieved with completely stable infrastructure and no identified issues in the Starknet stack.
TL;DR: Starknet is ready to welcome users and projects at scale.
3. More performance and optimization
All of this metrics are just the starting point. Starknet aims for even greater performance improvements across three main areas:
1. TPS capacity and speed
Major optimizations are coming on this area, notably two:
Stwo (Q1 2024): StarkWare’s next-gen prover, which is 1,000 times more efficient than Starknet’s current prover and will power all Starknet chains.
Cairo-Native (Q2 2024): an optimization at the Starknet sequencer level. Here are the expected results of this optimization on Starknet mainnet.
2. Gas fee reductions
Starknet has numerous improvements planned here. Notably, Volition, a feature on the Starknet roadmap, will allow developers to choose between storing data on Ethereum (offering maximum security but at a higher cost) or other DA solutions (slightly lower security but highly cost-effective). Starknet also has several optimizations planned to reduce reliance on Ethereum data blobs and decrease DA costs in the short-term, including:
v0.13.3 (Dec): Stateless compression, Squash-pricing
v0.13.4 (Feb): Stateful compression, L2 gas, try/catch
v0.14.0 (Apr): 2-second blocks + mempool
You can dive deeper into the Starknet roadmap here, and here.
3. Even better UX and unification
In terms of UX, you’ll see Web2-like features spreading throughout the entire Starknet ecosystem, especially in the gaming sector. Soon, we’ll also see zkLogin, the implementation of Protocol-level Paymaster, and undoubtedly many other innovations. Starknet already offers the best UX in the space, and it will only improve from here.
The Starknet ecosystem will also reduce friction with the upcoming launch of Kakarot, which will bring EVM wallets to Starknet, allowing users to interact with Starknet dApps using MetaMask, Phantom, Rabby, and others. Additionally, this will also facilitate Starknet’s integration with major bridging services.
StarkWare is also working to integrate Starknet into IBC, enabling seamless interoperability with the Cosmos ecosystem and all its chains. In addition, Keplr, the leading wallet of the Cosmos ecosystem, has already integrated Starknet into its wallet.
On top of all that, we’ll see the unification of the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities on Starknet. Here is the complete vision for Starknet x Bitcoin-Ethereum.
TL;DR: more TPS, more speed, cheaper gas fees, better UX, less friction, more unification.
Conclusion
Rebuilding from scratch with a new VM—rather than simply copy pasta the EVM—takes time. But now, Starknet is ahead of most L2s (and soon L1s) in terms of performance, and the gap is only going to widen. The same applies to UX, with the added advantage that Starknet already offers the best user experience in the entire space.
If you’re a builder or a project looking to provide your users with a Web2-like UX along with all the benefits of Web3, just come build on Starknet (you can contact me on X and I will put you in contact with the StarkWare ecosystem team).
If you want to dive deeper into Starknet’s vision, potential, and north star, here is an excellent article.
We’re so fucking back brothers. Truthfully, we never left and are now stronger than ever, with more Starknet brothers than before.
None of the content of this newsletter is financial advice. Always do your own research.
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