What is StarkNet? StarkNet Ecosystem Overview

StarkNet Ecosystem Overview: What areas are on StarkNet? What stage is the StarkNet ecosystem at? Looking for investment opportunities and projections of the StarkNet ecosystem.

In the past time, layers-2 on Ethereum have continuously launched, growing extremely quickly. Those ecosystems are very developed and get a lot of community attention, there are many impressive strides, and the StarkWare ecosystem is one of such ecosystems.

To help you catch up with the StarkNet ecosystem, in this article, I will go through this ecosystem with you and answer the following questions:

What arrays are on StarkNet?
What stage is the StarkNet ecosystem at?
Looking for investment opportunities and projections of the StarkNet ecosystem.

We will find out in the next article!

Projects 2, 9, 10, 11 are projects using StarkWare's StarkEx technology.

What is StarkNet?

StarkNet is an Ethereum layer 2 solution in the form of a ZK-Rollup solution. StarkNet allows any dApp to run, operate, and scale indefinitely without compromising Ethereum's ability to aggregate and secure, thanks to StarkNet's reliance on the STARK system - StarkWare 's technology develop .

The StarkNet contract and the StarkNet operating system are written in the Cairo programming language - a programming language that supports the deployment and scaling of Dapps or smart contracts , regardless of the business logic.

StarkWare's products

Starkware has the following featured products: Cairo, SHARP, VeeDo, StarkEx, StarkNet.

Cairo: Cairo is the common computational programming language of Starkex & Starknet. All protocols & dapps built on Starkex & Starknet will use Cairo.
SHARP: SHARP is a system that allows to collect a set of (different) Cairo Programs to generate a proof for all of them, then put this proof on Ethereum so that it is verified by a STARK verifier, reducing gas fees for transactions.
VeeDo: VeeDo is a trustless randomness feature verifiable thanks to STARK technology (roughly translated as trustless lottery), this feature is similar to Chainlink's VDF
StarkEx & StarkNet: Starkex is a customized version of Starknet for Trading (Specific L2), while Starknet is a full version - permissionless decentralized ZK-Rollup.

In this article, I will go with you to learn about the StarkNet ecosystem.

Outstanding parameters

Outstanding parameters of blockchain Starkware (March 3, 2022):

Block Height: 54,173;
Number of wallet addresses: 39,849;
Number of transactions: 6,183,133;
Wallet activation fee: $6.5;
NFT mint fee: $0.53;
Remittance fee: $0.2;
Withdrawal fee to Ethereum: $13 dollars;
Number of tokens on chain: 156 tokens;
Programming language: Cairo.

The parameters can be monitored at StarkNet explorer: zkscan.io/

History, current situation and roadmap

Starkware has come a long way and has many memorable milestones (March 3, 2022):

StarkEx v1.0 (June 2020): The first version of StarkEx technology is released and used;
VeeDo (June 2020): Mainnet Launch of VeeDo takes place;
Cairo (August 2020): Cairo is launched for the first time;
StarkEx 2.0 (December 2020): ImmutableX and dYdX are the first products to be deployed on StarkEx 2.0;
Upcoming StarkWare milestones include:
- StarkNet Step I Planets: Single-App Rollups;
- StarkNet Step II - Constellations: Multi-App Rollups;
- StarkNet Step III - Universe: Decentralized Rollup..

Project investors and partners

Starkware is invested by many funds in the market through many investment rounds. To date, StarkWare has raised $111M (equity) since its inception. In addition, Starkware has also received a $12M grant from the Ethereum Foundation to expand the Ethereum network.

The Starkware Funding Rounds lines are as follows:

Seed Round (1/2018): Raised $6M (equity) from Pantera, Naval Ravikant, MetaStable, Floodgate, Polychain, Vitalik Buterin, Zcash Co-founder, Arthur Breitman, Da Hongfei, Bitmain, Elad Gil, Fred Ehrsam, Linda Xie,..
Series A (October 2018): Raised $30M (equity) from Paradigm (Led), Intel Capital, Sequoia, Atomico, DCVC, Wing, Consensys, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Collaborative Fund, Scalar Capital, Semantic Ventures.
Series B (March 2021): Raised $75M (equity) from Paradigm (Led) and other investors.

Pieces of the puzzle on StarkNet

An overview of the puzzle pieces on StarkNet will be introduced and analyzed in the following section, according to the categories in the ecosystem. The information is synthesized by myself through the StarkNet skin on Twitter as well as many other search engines (March 3, 2022). Because StarkNet is only one of the ecosystems under StarkWare , you need to understand clearly to avoid confusion.

DEX

DEX projects on the StarkNet ecosystem include:

Starkswap: A DEX built on StarkNet. The project's alpha testnet is promised to launch in the first quarter of 2022.
Jediswap: Currently the project is running testnet and you can try the project's product. This is another DEX on Starknet.
mySwap: Currently the project is running testnet and you can try the project's product. This is the DEX on Starknet.
Zigzag: A DEX built on StarkNet, operating on an orderbook mechanism.

Comment: The AMM DEX array is the first segment that needs to be completed in any ecosystem to be ready for the future boom of other arrays. The StarkNet system is in the early stages of perfecting the DEX array, in the early stages of developing the first major main players. Projects are in testnet stage, you can use retroactive opportunity earning product .

Lending

Lending projects on the StarkNet ecosystem include:

zkLend: Money-market lending project on StarkNet. Currently, no product of the project has been released to users, nor has a testnet launched.

The lending array is an important part of any ecosystem to increase the efficiency of the capital in the system. Having the activity of lending will open up the possibility of developing more applications in the future such as derivatives, or farm leverage,... in this fledgling ecosystem.

Please follow along with me to find the first lending arrays on the zkSync system in the future.

The infrastructure

Infrastructure projects on the StarkNet ecosystem include:

Bridge : Suez, Qasr, Kubri,... are bridges under development and in testnet phase to bring cash flow to StarkNet.
Explorer on the system already has and supports tracking transactions as well as information in the system relatively easily because there are many visualized charts operating on the system (for example, the chart shows the total amount of wallets, total transaction volume, etc. ..).
Wallet to store assets, interact with applications on the system, and the most popular is still Metamask .
Infrastructure for DAO :
- Snapshot, Zorro Protocol - infrastructure applications for DAO voting are in development.
- Bibliotheca - dedicated infrastructure for Loot - NFT project on Ethereum.

Comment: The infrastructure pieces on StarkNet are currently being developed and well served for applications. Bridges are in the process of development, infrastructure for application development is also in the process of development, because the Cairo programming language makes it difficult for the number of applications and developers to scale to StarkNet.

Gaming/NFT Projects

Gaming/NFT projects on StarkNet include:

Gaming projects on StarkNet: Dope Wars, Influence, Realms, Game of Blocks, Eykar, bitmapbox, Phi Φ, The Ninth.
NFT Marketplace Project:
- Oasis - the first NFT Market project on StarkNet, currently testingnet.
- Mint Square - a platform for NFT issue on StarkNet is in testnet stage.
- NFTflow - a liquidity generator for NFTs.
- Briq - application to support building NFT on StarkNet.
Game building platform on StarkNet: ImmutableX is a gaming development platform on StarkNet. This is the platform that receives a lot of market attention, because it is the leading gaming platform on StarkWare.

Other pieces

Other projects in the StarkNet ecosystem include:

Yield aggregator: Fuji DAO is the first and only yield aggregator project at the moment.
Derivatives: ZkX - Derivatives project on StarkNet. No other information about the project is known at this time.
Launchpad: ZkPad - Launchpad project on StarkNet. The project is not yet operational.
Betting: iBetYou - Project about betting on StarkNet.

General comments and projections about the StarkNet ecosystem

Identify

Currently, StarkNet is in the early stages of the ecosystem, where the most basic DeFi applications are just beginning to be developed and not yet launched - the most interested DEXs are in the testnet stage. Next time, when DEXs launch products and launch liquidity mining programs, you can ape-in to make profits.

Infrastructure pieces are also gradually appearing in full. Other areas of DeFi on StarkNet that are still lacking include launchpad applications, yield aggregator and higher applications in DeFi such as Derivatives, Options, Social Network, gaming, ...

Projections

In the coming time, other basic areas of DeFi on StarkNet need to develop and launch products including DEX, lending, launchpad, yield farm, yield aggregator,... and then maybe other areas like GameFi , Metaverse, Social Network,...

You can find opportunities in upcoming projects in the basic areas of DeFi because when new projects launch, there are many opportunities for farming, liquidity mining and airdrops for users in the ecosystem.

Epilogue

Hopefully, through the above article, you have had a better overview of the StarkNet ecosystem, the main protocols in the StarkNet system, and started looking for investment opportunities on the StarkNet ecosystem.