Bankless - Starknet Token Launch Is Here! ($STRK)

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

The Stark token is here! After waiting for almost 6 years we're thrilled to share that one of the earliest and most promising layer 2's has just released official details on their token, STRK. They are provisioning it to users of Starknet, to stakers in the Ethereum ecosystem, open source developers and so many more. A total of 1.3 Million wallets are eligible to receive the $STRK token, are you one of them? Joining us today is Starkware founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, and Starknet CEO Diego Oliva who are here to walk us through all you need to know about the big launch. ✅ Check Eligibility Here: https://provisions.starknet.io/  ------ 🏹 USE PODCAST24 FOR 10% OFF https://bankless.cc/Citizen2024  ------ 🎧 Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Player:  https://bankless.cc/Podcast  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠  🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo    🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION https://bankless.cc/toku    🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle    💸 CRYPTO TAX CALCULATOR | USE CODE BANK30 https://bankless.cc/CTC  🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ------ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 05:28 Timing Of The Launch 07:36 Denominate Fees in Stark Tokens 12:29 Starknet Readiness 16:53 Starkware/Starknet Company Design 21:24 Distribution of $STRK 26:01 Total Supply of Token 27:12 Provisions For Stakers 32:16 Provisions Via Staking Pool 33:10 StarkEx Users 36:44 Release Dates 40:26 What's Next? 43:43 Exciting Community Narratives 48:19 Closing Thoughts ------ RESOURCES Eli: https://twitter.com/EliBenSasson  Diego: https://twitter.com/jdiegooliva  Starknet: https://twitter.com/Starknet  ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠ 

Bankless Nation, the Stark token is here. Well, just about, actually, we have the release details. We've been waiting for this event for almost six years. Starknet has been one of the earliest and most promising layer twos, and they have just released the details of their token. They are provisioning it to users of StarkNet, to stakers in the Ethereum ecosystem, and to open source developers. We get into who's getting the Stark token? How much of the Stark token is getting distributed as a percentage? When does claiming actually begin. David, I just used this term provisions. Could you explain that for a minute? That is what a Starknet version of anirdrop is. It is a provision. Users will probably hear

provisions, but they'll think air drops, that would be correct. These are just the terms that they have elected to use. On the show today, we have Ellie Ben Sasson and Diego Olivia. Diego is the CEO of the Starknet Foundation. Ellie, of course, is one of two Starknet dads. These people have been with the ecosystem for years now, especially Ellie, who's been working on Stark's since before Ethereum was even a thing. So we get into all the details that Ryan mentioned and more. Overall, just a long time coming for StarkNet. As soon as we knew that StarkNet was a thing, we all kind of knew that a token was going to be a thing. I went to the Stark Ware sessions a little over a year ago in Tel Aviv, Israel, in February of last year. And it was just very clear that this Stark net,

this network was being built upon the shoulders of this community who just really loves to be there. This very technical, low-level devs, Stark Maxis, I like to call them. And so this network is being born on the shoulders of this community that's very ready to receive it. And the distribution of the Stark tokens, STRK, is also something that's pretty notable. And we get into all these details in the show. If you are in the Ethereum ecosystem, if you are an active participant, I think you'll be pretty happy. Let's go ahead and get into those details. But first, I'm going to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible,

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cello forums. Follow Sello on Twitter and visit cello.org to shape the future of Ethereum. Bankless Nation, we got an exciting episode for you here today. First, on the podcast, we got Diego Olivia, CEO of the Starknet Foundation. Diego, welcome to the show. Thank you. Excited to be here. Yeah, very exciting. And of course, longtime bankless listeners will remember Ellie. Ellie, Ben Sazden, one of the two fathers of Starknet, co-founder of Starkware, overall mathematician genius. Ellie, to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me here, David Ryan. Always a pleasure. So this show, I think, is going to be extremely exciting. This has been a long time coming. Starkware, StarkNet, and overall Stark's has been a pillar of the crypto world, even before Ethereum launched.

And it's been no secret that eventually Starknet will decentralize and create a token and give it to its community. And today appears to be that day. Ellie, you have been around since the very beginning. Why now? Why is today the right day to do this? Why is 2024 Q1 the right time to do this? What was some of the decisions and calculus into making this choice? Why now? It was the earliest possible in terms of the technical and decentralization roadmap. We would have loved to do it much earlier, but this is when the system is ripe enough for it. We have now fees enabled in the Starknet token, which is the main, for it, and we're making progress on other aspects of decentralization, like staking for the

purpose of generating start proofs and sequencing things. So this is just the earliest possible, and we would have loved to do it earlier if we could. So, Ellie, what were some of the necessary criteria for provisioning a token? You sort of alluded to a few of this being sort of the earliest necessary time, like what needed to be in place exactly? The main thing that just was turned on with version 13 of the protocol is that we now have the ability to submit transactions where the fee is denominated in the Stark token. Prior to this, we just didn't have the protocol was not mature enough to support this capability. So this took time to build and bake, and now the protocol is ready for it. So this is the, you know, so we are turning on the transferability of the token

for the purpose of paying for transactions on Starknet, and later on so that it flows to the operators that will stake it in order to operate the system and maintain it secure and decentralized. We'll get into a lot of the economics of the token itself, but since you just brought it up, Ellie, I want to drill into this. So the decision to denominate fees in the Starknet token itself, why did you go in that direction?

And there are other layer twos that have chosen to denominate fees in, say, Ether. You know, some also have chosen to denominate their native token. That seems to be the direction that you're taking. Why? We need those who care about Starknet, those who build it, those who maintain it and secure it through their work and operations. We need them to be the ones operating it, ensuring it, and also to be able to use it. And you see, if fees were denominated in ether, they would flow towards the operators, and also parts of it through things like Devonomics would flow to developers.

But then all of those entities who care a lot about Starknet would have a little bit of ether, not enough to make a dent into who controls Starknet. And this does not make sense. You need the decentralized layer to to be controlled by an answer to those. those who care about it, are passionate about it, through their actions and operations. So you really need the token of the L2 to dictate things like operations staking. And a fee mechanism is just a very good way to ensure that there's inclusivity, that tokens and hence power and security is flowing towards those who are providing value to the network.

Of course, of course, a portion of the gas fees actually needs to in some way be converted to ether in order to purchase the block space from the Ethereum mainnet. Am I right about that? And how does that work in this mechanism? Yeah, well, a portion is indeed paid to Ethereum for the security and for basically putting the proofs and the state's differences on layer one. but all of what's called the L2 costs are going to be flowing to the operators and the stakers. And some of those are related to the capital costs for staking and also to the cloud costs and other costs of operating the system. And those are going to be flowing rightly to the entities who develop, maintain, secure, care about Starknet.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if other L2s, like happened in other cases, you know, we are, sometimes we're claimed to be unaligned, but we are truly aligned with, you know, future-proof technology and security. And I wouldn't be surprised if we will also be trailblazing a path here. And I wouldn't be surprised if you'll see other L-2s also picking on this queue and turning on fees in their own tokens. I wouldn't be surprised. Ellie, I think you might be alluding to a tweet that I kind of fired off from the hip maybe about a month ago about like this exact subject, Stark using its own currency as its gas token.

And I just want to like just bring that up for a second because I called it like the most unaligned layer two once again just firing from the hip. And really what I just meant by that was just like the strong technical differences between Stark net and Ethereum. Like Ethereum alignment is kind of a meme. but I've always thought of it as like a technical conversation first and foremost, where you have like optimism and arbitram going for EVM equivalence, trying to be one-to-one compatible. And Starknet has always been, does not, that's not its direction at all. Starknet, I've kind of expressed, is a Stark maxi.

They believe in Starks. The whole ecosystem believes in Starks and scaling out the power of Starks. And so like alignment was meant to be just like a technical differentiator, not any sort of statement about being like, aligned with Ethereum and spirit. And so I just wanted to clear that up with there. I'm actually having our conversation with Abdel from Stark, Starkware, Starknet on this very same subject. That'll be out, that'll be out soon.

And I just always thought it was like a curiosity is like what happens when Starknet leverages its own token for gas? I think the, I just want to say that I think the Starknet ecosystem is eternally grateful to you, David, for, you know, raising up this meme and just giving us so much good creative power. You know, we just really leaned into this unaligned. You know, we're proudly unaligned. It's a great, so, you know, thank you for giving you the fodder. Yeah, exactly.

Laving us is unaligned. It really helps us a lot. I'll rebrand it as technically differentiated, perhaps. Maybe that's a better way to say it. Diego, I want to get you in here as well, CEO of the Starknet Foundation. Maybe you kind of can illuminate your role and the Starknet Foundation itself. And also maybe give your perspective on the choice of timing. Like why is Starknet ready to be born, if you will?

Because there's like the incubatory period of Starknet where all is being like spun up. But now this is like now it's going out into the wild. It's, you know, those kids getting dropped off at college. Parents are saying goodbye. Starknet dads are waving goodbye. Like you're on your own now. Diego, give us a little bit your perspective about the readiness of Starknet. Yeah, so I think, well, Elie alluded the readiness from a technical standpoint, so I think he covered that.

But I also think that it has taken some time for us, for our community and ecosystem to get to a point where it was also ready to start this journey towards the centralization. And hence the creation of the foundation as well. And now, as a foundation, we're trying to sort of help the community. lead its path towards the centralization. And what that means, so what are the goals of the foundation? I can summarize them in three main points. One of them is about growth and decentralization. And growth means just getting on board as many developers,

teams, applications, infrastructure, tooling, builders to build on top of StartNet to make us more resilient, and also to be more decentralized as we grow in terms of a number of teams and builders. So that's one thing that we're going to be doing at the foundation, focusing on bringing teams on board through education, obviously awareness, all types of workshops, hackathon, hacker houses, and also developer partnerships for those building infrastructure here. So really orchestrating the growth of our ecosystem.

So nurturing that growth on our own. So that's number one objective. Number two is around helping nourish our community and culture. And here this we believe is very, very important because technology itself, making it work where we're now at a point where we're scaling it in terms of speed and reduction of cost and that will continue. But actually, I think the bigger, more long-term challenge is

how do we scale a team of teams? And I think it's going to be very important to get, like, you know, tens of thousands, hopefully of developers and thousands of teams to work towards one mission, all even if you have, you know, DFI protocols or gaming companies or whatever it may be, and even competing ones that we are all aligned by one goal of what we're trying to achieve with StarClet. And hence, we need to figure out a way to work together, to collaborate, to bring StartMet forward. And I think that's again, as a foundation, we need to facilitate those processes. and make sure that we are aligned on the values that we have on starting as a community.

And the foundation is sort of kind of leading from behind, just trying to see how we help the community find its own feats in this growth. And last, but related, last goal would be around governance and delivery. So once we build that community, that culture, then what does that mean in terms of how we execute together? So how do we figure out processes in terms of the committees, the necessary committees or councils, how we make decisions around the product roadmap, what features should come first, what vertical should we try to tackle how differentiate, we differentiate ourselves, what type of research should we be engaging in and so forth, but also being sure, like trying to help on the delivery.

So not because of governance and trying to, of course, include as many teams and the voices of many people that we lack speed because we need to be able to be inclusive in terms of decision making, but at the same time we need to deliver at pace. So we need to be as effective as, I think, a centralized organization. And that's going to be like a paramount, like a really big challenge. And I think if we manage as a foundation to help the community solve these three goals, I think we're going to be going a long way. So it's a lot of work in the years ahead.

So this design where we have Ellie with the co-founder of Starkware, which is a company, and Diego, you are the CEO of the Starknet Foundation. We've seen sort of company plus foundation types of setups in other ecosystems, other layer twos have adopted this sort of setup. Defi protocols have, you know, with Uniswap, you have Uniswap the company and there's Uniswap the foundation. So I think a lot of bankless listeners will understand the basics of this model that there's two kind of entities. And I'm wondering if it's sort of it works the same or like, you know, Ellie, what is Starkware going to be doing moving forward versus what is the foundation going to be doing? I mean, is starkware done? Is the work finished? Is it now passed to the foundation or there's still more work to do? Just talk to us about this, maybe related to other foundation plus company designs we've seen in crypto. One thing that's important to note that I think in which the Starknet Foundation is unique is that in most cases you have sort of labs and then undergoing mitosis, right?

This process in biology where a cell splits evenly into two parts. And then one part is called labs and the other part is called the foundation. The Starknett Foundation is uniquely different in this respect. It is truly independent and you don't see anyone from the sort of core founding team and certainly not an even split. It's not that the labs has done mitosis. And I think the main thing about this, and again, it goes back to, you know, things about like vision and values. we take decentralization very seriously and the long-term viability of Starknet

as an integrity web as something that can be trusted by the public all around the world really calls for this sort of independence. Now regarding StarCorp, it has so much to do and it's also having so much fun doing it that, no, we're not going to go off

of the Bahamas to drink cocktails and bathe in the sun. We are, as will be evident in the coming weeks, we're all about like trailblazing technology. So we have some very exciting technological breakthroughs to share with the world further on. Our vision is or our passion, and our focus is on improving the technology even more. And the reason is that if you want to become the rails for the global economy, then, you know, as amazing as Starknet performances right now,

it's not yet ready for, you know, the one million TPS and more that you probably need for that. Now, we'll get there. There's nothing theoretically barring the technology from reaching it, But to answer your question, what will StarCRA do? So alongside many other teams in the Starknet ecosystem will be advancing that mission and that vision of taking it really global. I mean, from the foundation, what I can say is what I would hope and expect is for StarCware to ship more and more as years go by, but their share going down and down because of all the other builders. I think Starware, we definitely work very closely, and they are really important contributor, and we expect them to increase what they ship, but actually reduce their share significantly

as we grow the rest of the ecosystem, which is what's really exciting. Maybe the differences and roles between these two organizations is actually contained in the name, Starkware, as in software. I'm pretty sure that's the right playoff of words, software except for Starks. And this is the model that I think we've seen. other organizations take where the original labs company becomes like the software service provider towards the actual network, StarkNet, net, net being everything else that it takes to foster and maintain and develop a network. Okay, so today is the date where we're getting a lot of the

information and there will be a link in the show notes on the YouTube for people to be able to just go read this blog themselves, but maybe you can kind of just rattle off some of the big specific dates. When will this provision be accessible towards the people that have been provisioned? And then we'll also get into some of the details behind who got what. Yes. So today we're announcing the provisions and now you can go to our website to check eligibility. So you can go there today.

And then the actual claim of the tokens will happen on February 20th next week. So let's go ahead and get right into some of the details on the, the, provisions here. And Diego, I'll continue with you here. What are the things that just really stand out as the big details about what about this provision program? Like what populations of people, what contributors? What do you want to highlight first before we get into some of the granular details? Yeah. So we're going to be distributing 700 million star tokens to around 1.3 million addresses, which is the largest distribution ever made, which we're very, very proud of. And I think that's very, very exciting to try to include as many people to come aboard

StartNet and also Ethereum journey. So we're very excited about that. 1.3 million addresses. Can you start to like unpack who are these people? What are the different communities or just collections of people are receiving provisions here? Yes. So over 50% of the tokens are going to be going to start net users. So those that help us really get, we're trying the applications, getting it ready,

improving the usage, giving feedback to the builders and so forth. We have also close to 9% going to the StartNip community, which includes everyone from developers to also those organizing meetups, helping other developers to learn, helping everyone get acquainted with what Stardin is about, all the efforts about building our community that are going to be receiving tokens there. We also have around 2% of the distribution going for Starknet developers, so people that have really contributed to the tooling infrastructure that makes Starknet possible. And we're also having a good portion of tokens distributed to those contributing to Ethereum.

And that is from each stakers. So we think that is very important that they have helped secure the network. So we want them to be compensated as well. So we have those that are doing it via pools, and that's around 17% of the distribution. And we have also around 5% of the distribution going to solo stakers that also take a bit more risk on that, but that are, again, supporting the network. We have also an allocation to the Protocol Guild of Ethereum, so those that have helped maintain and secure Ethereum as well. Those are also being doing the EIP authors as well,

have an allocation as well. And then we have 2.1% going to the top 5,000 GitHub projects as well, which we're very happy again. We're trying to welcome as many developers to come to started and contribute to Ethereum, broadly speaking. So I encourage all of you to go to our website to check for eligibility, and please be aware of scams. There is no token available yet. The claim of the tokens will be next week on the 20th. But go check eligibility as soon as possible.

I got to say, with all of the solo stakers and Ethereum developers and the Protocol Guild out there, it sounds like, David, a pretty aligned move here. I don't know. I don't know what you'd tweet about this, but. I do think like a token distribution, token provisioning type of event sort of shows you a little bit where the network's values are and like what they're trying to incent moving forward. And I just want to applaud some rewards for some of the groups that you guys have decided to include there. But just before, I know David's going to do a recap in details. We make sure we capture all that detail.

But before we get there, when you were talking about the percentage that are going to all these various groups, Diego, you were talking about a percentage of the 700 million Stark token distribution. It was relative to that. That's 700 million amount. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And then the wider context of this, this is a new token. So what is the total supply of this new token so we can take even the 700 million into context here? Yes. The total supply of Stark token is of 10 billion Stark tokens. We still are working on the overall tokenomics of it. So we are still going to be working on proposals that we have to decide also inflation, which at the moment, one of the proposals is around 4%. But for the time being, we do have 10 billion Stark tokens.

So I kind of want to just recap the high level categories that I see. I see four different categories here. The big one is Starknet users. So just users of Starknet. It sounds like if you just have an address that has produced a footprint on Starknet, you are getting a provision. And that's just the biggest category. That's probably where a lot of the addresses come from. And then there's the second category that I want to pull out, Ethereum Stakers. And can we just talk about this category specifically really quick? Then there's the two other categories. These are both solo stakers and and staking pools, correct, Diego? And can you talk about just like the parameters around,

I don't know if I've ever heard of a provision going to staking pools. Can you talk about the logistics behind that and just any dates that are relevant here? Maybe I can, I'd be happy to take this question. The first thing I want to point out is the rationale behind allocating to stakers. And remember that Starkner decentralization calls for having as broad as possible a set of individuals and a public that is interested in the operation and securing of decentralized networks. And if you ask yourself, okay, where can we find people who through their actions have demonstrated that they are passionate about this and want to help? And one glaring answer is, of course, you know, folks like miners and stakers and operators.

So when you're jumpstarting, this broad footing or distribution or foundation for the decentralized operation, it just makes a lot of sense to include this class. And that's the reasoning behind. Because you want them to come stake in the Starknet ecosystem? We want a broad set of independent operators so that you have a permissionless, decentralized, network and you ask yourself, who's going to step up and be willing to take the, you know, and has the technological and security understanding of the implications of things like staking and slashing and the, you know, responsibility that is entailed by it, you know, basically entrusting and securing funds for the public. And a very natural class that is already presenting itself

and saying, hey, we're into that sort of thing, our Ethereum Stakers. So we want them to be part of this, just like we want Starknet developers to be sitting at the table. And, you know, if they're passionate about building things on Starknet as a public good, we want them to have tokens so they can operate the system. Mantle, formerly known as BitDAO, is the first Dow-led Web3 ecosystem, all built on top of Mantle's first core product. the Mantle Network, a brand new high-performance Ethereum Layer 2 built using the OP stack, but uses Eigenlayers data availability solution instead of the expensive Ethereum Layer 1.

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that can be done by Toku or integrated into any payroll EOR providers in any jurisdiction. Toku is a trusted provider of protocol labs, DYDX Foundation, Meena Protocol, and many more. Get started for free and make token compensation simple at Toku.com slash bankless. the provisions here is to staking pools, which I think might be logistically novel. I don't know if we've ever seen that before. Can you talk about just what that means if we're receiving a provision via a staking pool? Like what should people know? Well, for all of you that are staking via a pool, then you need to contact your pool operator to get information on how you can get your stark. But for all of you doing solo staking, then be sure to go to our website to

check eligibility. Beautiful, beautiful. Okay, so that's the relatively large Ethereum Stakers category. The next category of the pattern that I've seen here is what I'll call kind of like the pre-Starknet ecosystem. And this is StarkX users. And then the Starknet developers, which we already went into a pretty good detail, and then the Starknet community.

I want to hang on the StarkX users. Who are these people? StarkX, who are some of these products that have been out in the wild? for the last number of years, that if people have used these things, they would be considered here. Who are StarkX users? So StarkX users, first of all, the technology underlying Starknet is completely novel. It is, you know, the first usage of Stark proofs alongside a novel virtual machine, Cairo and a programming language that is ergonomic and safe that uses it. And all of this in production. Now, the first setting in which this novel,

L2 was tested and brought to production was through the Stark X systems. And the Cairo language, which now supports Starknet, was honed and finessed on that platform. So the foundations of Starknet and its security and its, you know, U.S. and a lot of other good properties about it are inherited. from StarkX and have been tested and vetted by the users of DYDX,

Surre, Immutable, Rhino, and a bunch of others. And just like the users of StarkNet have offered a terrific service to Starknet and they are

natural candidates to be provisioned so that they can participate in the journey that is Starknet, the same thing applies to the early users of the technology on StarkX. Along the way, this will be another class that hopefully brings many novel Web 2 people to the Web 3 setting, because some of the users, for instance, of Serere and other of these systems are not necessarily native Web 3, and this will be a good way to introduce them to Web 3 technology. We actually often talk about trying to build products for mainstream and so rareheads already done that.

And so these might be like a large supply of addresses that don't know that they are getting a toga, very important token. And then I think like you just called out, DYDX. The first implementation of DYDX was a Stark X chain, which I believe I will be getting a provision from my early degeneracy in 2019 and 2020 when I was using DYDX. And then immutable for anyone who is using Gods Unchained or some of the early gaming platforms, a pretty wide set of users here because the history of StarkX chains goes back really, really far. And you also called out Rino previously known as Diversify, I believe, a very early exchange using StarkX as well. So that's probably a pretty broad set of people who have been inside of the Ethereum and Cryptoomum. for a very long time. So that's what I call the pre-Starknet ecosystem.

And then there's the Ethereum Builders, 1% to the Protocol Guild. 3.3% of all Ethereum developers who contributed at least three commits before November in 2023, EIP authors, and then of course that last category, the Starknet users. Okay, 1.3 million addresses. By far, the largest distribution in address. One more time, I know we've talked about some of the, the, logistics and details here. But there's been a lot of fishers in this world. But Diego, just give us the dates and what people need to do. There's a link in the show notes for all of

this information. Just give us the dates one more time about when people can go access their provision. Yes. So today you should go to our website to check for eligibility. So you should go there as soon as possible. But the claim itself starts on the 20th of February. So nothing before that is real. So be careful with scams and emails and things that people are already unfortunately sending. Nothing will be happening on to February 20th and be sure to check the official handles of the foundation and just always double check that you're going to the right place. But again, I repeat, today, go check eligibility on our website and the claim starts on February 20th. And the story actually is not over. This is the Starknet Provisions Program, and this is the first provision of more.

Can you talk about the future? What does the future of this program look like? How will future provisions be determined and decided? So for us, actually, this is a very important milestone for our community, because it has taken a lot of work of a lot of people believing in Starknet users, builders, all together to get to this point. And it is a very important point in our history, but it's really the beginning. So this is just a way, a first step in terms of decentralization,

to get all these 1.3 million addresses, sort of a stake in our protocol, and for them to participate. But ultimately, this is going to be a marathon. So what we would like is for more people to come and build and, you know, build great infrastructure, great tooling, great daps on Starknet. and actually be part of the community. And what we want to do is to continue to nourish that through the foundation with all the programs we will have. And just inviting to participate in this journey of just basically making Starknet and Ethereum better. So this is just the first step.

That's why it's the first step in provisions, but there will be more things to come. And we have already other programs and, you know, all types of grants and education we provide for builders and users as well. If I may, I just want to say it's really a day of big celebration for the Starknet community. First and foremost, for the amazing ecosystem of developers and visionaries who've gone through so much and really devoted their past few months or years to making this such a success. and it is a milestone in the road to decentralization and to independence and flourishing of Starknet as an important layer two scaling Ethereum

and bringing Web 3 to global usage. I appreciate you guys releasing all these details and this episode goes live on Valentine's Day too. So, you know, it's the 14th of February. So maybe there's some love in the air to the Starknet community. And so the 14th, this is being announced. The 20th people can actually access their tokens for the first time. And so they should go see if they're eligible.

And then they should go access them. But my question is, then what? So I got some tokens. Cool. Maybe David's got some tokens from his DYDX stuff back a few years ago. Then the question in my mind is, now what? What do I do with these tokens? So can I stake them?

Should I just wait and hold on? Are there governance proposals to get involved with? Because, of course, provisioning a token like this, with a great token comes great responsibility. Tell us what some of the responsibilities are for token holders. So I can answer this. First of all, governance has been already live for quite some time. And you are urged to participate in governance or, you know, if you want to be a delegate, for others to delegate their governance rights to you, please consider doing so.

There are a number of staking related proposals in the works by various teams. There will be a number of staking proposals. I know for a fact because StarCorp is again working on one such proposal. But this is not yet live. I would say that you are urged to explore all of the cool things that are now live on Starknet. They're very interesting gaming, sustainability, defy, and other products and protocols. I don't want to mention anyone in particular just because there's so many of them and I will probably do a disservice to the others. but explore the ecosystem, see what you believe in, and see what brings value to you.

I think there is a large number of very interesting things to participate in there. One cool thing about these tokens, of course, is that they are gas tokens. So, of course, you know, all of the things that Ellie was just talking about, now you can pay for those things if you're a recipient of the Starknet token. You can actually use them within the system. Diego, were you going to say something to? Well, I think also, I think we see it as well as an opportunity to inspire other builders, inspire users to come and experience not only the daps that are already here,

but what's possible with this technology. So hopefully this distribution brings many more people or makes many more people aware of Starknet and what you can do with the Starknet network. And hopefully the token is part of that discovery, but it's not really the goal. It's just part of the mechanism we use to build some amazing things. So I do hope that people are encouraged

to then come and visit the start-in-world, experience already what's out there, and be inspired to build and participate in the ecosystem. Well, as we end this episode, let's talk about that for a moment. So when a token is provisioned, of course, you know, the full spotlight of everything in crypto is on that particular project. And so I imagine for the next few weeks, the full spotlight will be on Starknet. And so I'm wondering if this is maybe

for people who are not as familiar with the Starknet community, what are the most exciting things going on in the community? And Ellie, you don't have to name particular projects unless, of course, you want to, but you can talk about maybe categories. You can talk about maybe the future roadmap of of Starknet. What to you is most exciting about traction and some of the real world use cases and things going on that people should come explore? One huge theme that is already exploding on Starknet is on-chain gaming. It's very hard to put the on-chain, the logic of a game on-chain because that's a lot of compute. Well, on Starknet, with its scale, this is possible. So there's,

a lot of very interesting on-chain gaming projects out there. Please explore them. That's one thing that I'm very enthusiastic about. Another thing is just the sheer performance and cost improvements that are in line. We hope to be ready with EAP 4844 support pretty much from the minute it's turned on. There is a lot of work going on regarding further enhancements to the performance in terms of number of compute steps and simultaneously reduction of the cost to users, which will make Starknet much faster and cheaper. Now, another thing that is unique to Starknet and goes again to our technological. innovation and sort of independence and, you know, courage, I would say, technological courage,

is that Starknet is the only L2 with 100% native account abstraction, which means amazing web tool-like U.X for both the onboarding and the usage. So I think users coming already to claim the token are expected to see a very novel, well, novel for Web 3, but kind of expected in Web 2. And I think we'll see a lot more usage of things like smart wallets, you know, aka account abstraction by a lot of the major wallets and defy protocols. And then further down the line, one thing to keep an eye on is that, so let's take a a very broad view. So Starknet, now with its token, is something that has been, you know,

being baked in the oven for roughly six years. Starker started working on it in 2018. And prior to this, there was like 20 years of research at least. I myself devoted probably a decade of research to that. We are very enthusiastic about some big technological breakthroughs on both the product and the engineering and the math side that are going to be unveiled in the coming weeks. And it will take some time, you know, months to years for them to reach production and for everyone to enjoy them. But that's where our passion lies and that's where we're focusing on, on the horizon, on long-term viability. That's where we're heading. Well, when I hear you say technological breakthroughs, I get very excited because

Starkware has always been pushing the frontier of crypto and certainly has on L2s from the very beginning and, you know, Stark's math and technology and cryptography so far. So one thing I'll plus one is the on-chain gaming community and the Starknet ecosystem is absolutely popping off. That's where I see a ton of the energy and potential. And also account abstraction wallets. So bankless listener, you've heard David and I talk about these before. this is an experience that's similar to FinTech.

Revolut, it's similar to Venmo if you use something like that. It's not kind of the clunky EOA type of account that we're used to in most layer two on Ethereum is certainly the future. And one benefit is that Starknet has that baked in from the ground up. There's a wallet that I've been a big fan of for a while called Argent that actually completely migrated and deployed to Starknet, I believe in large part for account abstraction type of support. So this is definitely a frontier and has some differentiators from other L2s that you should

absolutely look into. Diego, anything else you want to say in conclusion? How do we wrap up this episode in this monumental event? For me, if I can say something, I think you're absolutely right. And I'll summarize it. Well, like we have incredible math, cryptography, technology. It's really mind-blowing. But I can tell you that many people come for the tech,

but stay for the community. One thing that is I feel like really, really encouraging and what makes start that great is actually the community of builders we have, how everyone helps each other, and also just a broader community of users as well. I think everyone is very, very passionate about what we're doing here together.

And also, and passionate to the extent that we always take the more difficult road, with Cairo as a language and just the differences we have in the way we build different. But the support you get from the community in gaming when you know the field is very unique. So I would just say that please do come, enjoy the tech, come for the tech, but I'm pretty certain you'll stay for our community.

All right, Ellie, anything, any last comments from you? Yeah, so a lot of the excitement, including next steps and things that will be unfolding. Some of that will be already revealed at Stark City, Denver, which will take place as part of Heath Denver on February 28th. So please join us, Diego, myself, a lot of the StarkNet Foundation and Starkware and StarkNet ecosystem folks are going to be there. We'd love to tell you what's on our minds, what we're working on,

and just celebrate Starknet. Amazing. Eli, Diego, thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations. It's been a long journey, a six-year journey. You guys have done this very methodically, and we certainly appreciate you spending time to educate the Bankless Nation on what's going on.

We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bankless listeners, there will be links in the show notes, of course. One to the blog post, which you've got to check out, has all the distribution details. Anything we didn't cover in this episode will be there. There will also be a link to the eligibility

criteria that Diego kept mentioning throughout this episode. That is the official place to check whether you are eligible. Careful about other links. At the time of release for this episode, that is February 14th, to be clear, you will not be able to actually claim any stark tokens. Okay, that happens later. That happens on the 20th, but you can check your eligibility. So make sure you don't get fish, you don't get scammed.

Also, we'll include a link to details on the Heath Denver event that Ellie was talking about. Got to end with this. Of course, crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.