For several weeks now, we have been looking at the different solutions that aim to restore Ethereum to its glory. With second-layer solutions, no more exorbitant fees and interminable transaction delays! StarkWare is one such solution, leveraging the benefits of zk-Rollups and zk-STARKs. Explanations!
Ethereum and its fees: like a feeling of déjà vu
We have been basking you with this for several months: Ethereum keeps approaching a point of no return. Indeed, the network is literally a victim of its success.
The time when Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, could laugh at the 5 cents transaction fee on Bitcoin is fine and well gone.
The meteoric rise of the DeFi ecosystem on Ethereum since the end of 2020 has resulted in a congestion importante, leaving no respite to the network.
Thus, it has become common, even very common, to payten to over hundred dollars to interact with Ethereum, depending on the complexity of the interaction. And as Vitalik said so well in 2014:
“Internet money shouldn’t cost 5 cents per transaction. It would be absurd. “
Fortunately, just as it was on Bitcoin with the Lightning Network, solutions exist on Ethereum for deport the load to off-chain networks, said second layer.
We have already explored several of these technical solutions, such asOMG Network, Plasma or Optimism. But today we are going to look at StarkWare, a project that aims to be the driving force behind new generation decentralized exchanges.
StakeWare: the DeFi engine of tomorrow?
StarkWare is an Israeli project, started in 2018 and whose objective is to develop a solution allowing to make Ethereum scalable.
This project was born from the association of several scientists and developers, including Eli Ben-Sasson, current president of StarkWare, also known for his involvement in the protocol Zcash.
After having published its whitepaper in 2018, the first version of StarkEx – the product developed by StarkWare – was published in June 2019 on the Ethereum testnet. A year later, StarkEx is finally deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and used by several decentralized exchanges, including DiversiFi.
Under the hood, StarkEx, the scalability solution developed by StarkWare: the latter uses a clever mix of zk-Rollups – that we have already met on the side of Loop ring – and zk-STARKs – nothing to do with House Stark – an improved version of zk-SNARKS.
zk-SNARKs, zk-STARKs, zk-what else?
We agree. At first glance, these acronyms have nothing very sexy. Yet they define extremely interesting cryptographic techniques as part of the protection of private life.
Although different in their implementations and ways of operating, zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs serve the same purpose: prove knowledge of certain information, without having to reveal the details.
Applied to blockchains, these methods make it possible to prove that a transaction is valid without having to reveal its content, both the amount, the sender or the recipient.
As this is not the subject of this article itself, we will keep the zk-SNARKs brief. What should be remembered is that the zk-SNARKs represent the first iteration of this zero-disclosure method of proof. Although it has many advantages, this requires a ceremony of generating the parameters for the initial configuration. Indeed, if this initial stage is not perfectly secret and that its content is known to a malicious third party, it is the entire system anonymizer that would be in jeopardy.
It is on this precise point that the zk-STARKs represent a evolution. So the « N » from SNARK which means « Non-Interactive » is replaced by a « T » in STARK which means « Transparent ». This point means that the zk-STARKs do not require initial configuration and do not present a single point of failure.
Moreover, the zk-STARKs present advantages in terms of computation speed and size. But above all, these proofs resist quantum computers, enough to envision a serene future.
StarkEx, the fusion of zk-STARKs and zk-Rollups
Back on topic ! StarkWare, the company that we presented previously, is working on the development of StarkEx, a engine allowing to create decentralized exchanges, deployed in second layer sure Ethereum.
In fact, StarkEx offers both scalabilité – through zk-Rollup – as well as Protection of private life – thanks to zk-STARKs – to allow instant and free trades on the second layer of Ethereum.
As with other second layer solutions, StarkEx is made up of 2 infrastructures, a off-chain and one on the main chain d’Ethereum.
“The off-chain component holds the state, orders the execution of transactions in the system, and sends status updates to the component.” on chain. The component on chain owns the system state record, system assets and is responsible for enforcing the validity of the state transition. “
Documentation de StakeWare
To put it simply, this means that the part off chain take care of process and record the execution of transactions. Periodically, this module communicates the current state of the system to the component on chain which takes care of verifying the validity of transactions and finalizing them on the main Ethereum chain.
–
In terms of performance, this solution makes it possible to treat no less than 3000 transactions per second, is 100 times more than the main Ethereum chain.
This is already used by the DiversiFi exchange platform and should also shortly allow the platform dYdX to be propelled on the second layer of Ethereum.
However, the company does not intend to stop there. Indeed, it now wishes to focus on interoperability with StarkNet, a network of second-layer interconnected applications. Case to follow!
–
