Starknet spustil nový rámec STRK20 Shieldnet, který chrání soukromí u 45 aktiv ERC-20 pomocí zero-knowledge proofů. Transakce se převádějí do šifrovaných poznámek a detaily lze selektivně zpřístupnit regulátorům.
Starknet just rolled out privacy protection for 45 ERC-20 assets through its new STRK20 framework, branded as Shieldnet. The system uses client-side zero-knowledge proofs to convert tokens into encrypted notes, making transaction details invisible to outside observers while still allowing selective disclosure for regulatory compliance.
How Shieldnet actually works The STRK20 framework operates on a note-based ZK system. When users interact with it, their assets are converted into encrypted notes that appear only as metadata on-chain. The sender, receiver, and transfer amounts are all hidden from public view.
This is fundamentally different from crypto mixers like the now-sanctioned Tornado Cash. Rather than pooling funds together to obscure their origins, Shieldnet enables selective lawful disclosure through encrypted viewing keys. Users can share these keys with regulators or auditors when required, revealing only the relevant transaction data while keeping everything else confidential.
The framework supports shielded transactions across DeFi applications, not just simple transfers. Protocols like AVNU and Ekubo are already integrated, meaning users can swap and provide liquidity with privacy features baked into the experience. Supported wallets include Xverse and Ready X.
The rollout timeline The STRK20 framework was first announced in March 2026, followed by a protocol upgrade tagged SHINOBI/v0.14.2 on April 21, 2026, which laid the technical groundwork. The first asset to go live under the framework was strkBTC, launched on May 12, 2026. USDC followed in June, and the full implementation covering 45 assets was completed by June 9, 2026.
Early engagement numbers look respectable for a brand-new privacy system. The privacy pool has processed more than 14,000 deposit transactions, with total value locked reaching approximately $350K shortly after launch.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Chybný cenový feed Pragma na Starknetu spustil u Vesu nepravidelnou likvidaci 47 pozic a zasáhl kolaterál v hodnotě 3 milionů USD. Vesu tvrdí, že jeho kontrakty fungovaly správně, a pracuje na obnově prostředků pro postižené uživatele.
Starknet lending protocol Vesu has reported that a faulty Pragma price feed triggered the abnormal liquidation of 47 positions holding $3 million in collateral on Sept. 4.
Summary
47 Vesu positions were liquidated across several pools during a two-minute oracle failure. $3 million in collateral was affected before the Pragma price feed corrected itself. Vesu said its contracts worked as programmed and contained no protocol vulnerability. Vesu and other Starknet organizations are trying to recover funds for affected users. Vesu traces $3M liquidation to Pragma price feed Vesu said in a Sept. 5 incident disclosure that the liquidations occurred between 04:08 and 04:10 UTC on Sept. 4 after an upstream price source operated by Pragma supplied incorrect data.
🚨 Update on the 4th September oracle incident
A faulty upstream Pragma price feed caused 47 positions and $3M of collateral to be irregularly liquidated across several Vesu pools between 04:08 and 04:10 UTC
The feed corrected itself within two minutes, and nothing has been…
— Vesu (@vesuxyz) September 4, 2026 During the two-minute incident, the faulty prices reached several Vesu liquidity pools and made 47 borrowing positions appear eligible for liquidation. Automated liquidators then removed approximately $3 million in collateral before the feed returned to the correct value.
According to the protocol, the price source corrected itself within two minutes and has operated normally since then. Vesu did not identify the affected assets or provide a pool-by-pool breakdown in its initial statement.
The company also did not disclose how far the incorrect prices differed from market rates, the amount of debt attached to the liquidated positions, or how much collateral liquidators retained. A technical report covering the incident is expected to provide more information about the affected markets and the sequence of on-chain transactions.
Pragma has since worked with the relevant organizations to deploy a fix addressing the source of the error, Vesu said. Liquidity pool curators suspended affected pools as a precaution, with Vesu expecting them to remove the restrictions after reviewing the fix.
Because Vesu uses isolated and curated lending pools, decisions on reopening individual markets rest with their curators. The initial update did not identify which curators had paused their pools or provide an exact timetable for restoring normal activity.
Vesu says its contracts contained no vulnerability Separating the incident from a smart contract exploit, Vesu said its contracts were “operating as designed” and did not contain a vulnerability. The protocol added that it had no contract patch to deploy because the liquidation engine responded to the prices it received.
In an overcollateralized lending market, a borrower deposits assets worth more than the value of a loan. The protocol uses an external price feed to measure the collateral ratio, and a liquidation may begin when that ratio falls below the pool’s required level.
Vesu attributed the Sept. 4 liquidations to bad inputs rather than faulty execution. Under its account, the contracts received incorrect collateral prices and processed the affected positions according to the rules already written into the protocol.
A July 2026 liquidation risk explainer from crypto.news described price data as the central input used to calculate a DeFi loan’s health factor. The report noted that stale or manipulated data can liquidate a healthy position or prevent an unsafe one from being closed.
Oracle dependence also extends beyond lending markets. An August 2026 report on blockchain oracles explained that smart contracts cannot independently read off-chain market prices, leaving them reliant on outside systems that collect, combine and publish data on-chain.
According to that report, an oracle normally handles data sourcing, aggregation, and on-chain delivery. A failure at any of the three stages can pass an inaccurate value to an otherwise functional smart contract, which may then complete a trade or liquidation based on the faulty input.
Recovery talks involve Starknet organizations Following the incident, Vesu said it began coordinating with Pragma, StarkWare, the Starknet Foundation, and the curators of the affected pools to recover funds collected through the liquidations.
The protocol has not yet explained how the recovery process will operate, how much of the $3 million remains recoverable, or whether liquidators have agreed to return any assets. Its statement also stopped short of announcing a guaranteed reimbursement amount or payment date.
For users with deposits in Vesu’s Earn product, the protocol advised keeping their positions open. Closing an Earn position before the recovery process is complete may remove the user’s eligibility for a refund, according to Vesu.
Borrowers whose positions were liquidated during the two-minute window were asked to open a support ticket through Vesu’s Discord server. The protocol did not specify what records users must submit, though wallet addresses and transaction details can identify affected positions on-chain.
Vesu’s response differs from an automatic reversal because blockchain transactions generally remain final after confirmation. Any restoration would therefore require recovered assets, voluntary returns from liquidators, protocol-controlled funds, or another compensation arrangement agreed upon by the parties. Vesu has not said which route it plans to use.
A comparable oracle-related event occurred on Aave in March 2026, when a stale parameter caused an estimated $26 million to $27 million in unintended wstETH liquidations. An August 2026 review of the incident reported that Aave later examined oracle update rates and fallback systems while using several oracle sources for major collateral types.
Vesu has not announced comparable changes to its oracle structure. Pragma’s root-cause fix was the only technical measure confirmed in the initial disclosure.
US users depend on Vesu’s recovery process For users in the United States, the incident involves a permissionless DeFi product rather than an insured bank account. The SEC’s Investor.gov website states that the FDIC insures deposits at eligible banks but does not protect securities or similar investments against a decline in value.
Vesu did not point to any government-backed protection for affected users. Instead, it directed them to its own support process and said the organizations involved were working to recover the collateral taken during the abnormal liquidations.
The protocol has not disclosed whether it restricts recovery by nationality or residence. Its instructions apply to users whose positions were liquidated during the identified window and to Earn depositors seeking to preserve possible refund eligibility.
At the network level, Vesu forms part of Starknet’s DeFi infrastructure. Starknet identified the lender as one of the protocols supporting its STRK20 privacy rollout in June 2026, alongside decentralized exchanges avnu and Ekubo and staking provider Endur.
Vesu said it will publish a complete technical report after its investigation, while affected borrowers can submit Discord support tickets, and Earn users have been told not to close their positions.
CREDI přináší na Starknet soukromé úvěrové trhy: šifrované transakce skrývají identitu dlužníků i podmínky obchodů, zatímco kryptografické důkazy dál ověřují správnost účtování. Integrace byla oznámena 20. srpna 2026.
Private credit is one of traditional finance’s least transparent corners. Borrowers don’t want their financing terms public. Lenders don’t want competitors knowing their book. And yet, on a public blockchain, every transaction is readable by anyone with a browser. CREDI thinks it has found a way around that contradiction.
The protocol, built by Credilabs, is bringing short-duration invoice and receivables financing onto Starknet using encrypted transactions that keep borrower identities and deal terms confidential while still allowing anyone to verify that the math checks out.
How the privacy layer actually works The core problem with putting credit markets on a public chain is that transparency, usually a feature, becomes a liability. A supplier borrowing against invoices doesn’t want the world to know who their clients are or what payment terms they’ve negotiated. CREDI’s answer is to use Starknet’s STRK20 framework to encrypt transaction data and maintain confidential balances.
The trick is that confidentiality doesn’t mean unverifiability. Cryptographic proofs let anyone confirm that collateralization ratios hold, that advance rates are correctly applied, and that vault accounting is accurate, without ever seeing the underlying borrower data.
Starknet announced the integration on August 20, 2026, and CREDI is part of the foundation’s inaugural Proof of Privacy cohort, a select group of projects building out the network’s privacy tooling.
The settlement architecture adds another layer of protection against default. Borrower repayments via Visa settlements flow directly into the vault rather than passing through the borrower’s hands first. Removing that intermediary step means borrowers can’t accidentally or deliberately redirect funds before lenders get paid.
The numbers behind the product CREDI isn’t a whitepaper project. Its Ethereum-based operation has been running since May 2024, and the track record so far is notable for an early-stage DeFi credit protocol.
The platform has financed more than 1,710 invoices totaling over $4 million, with an average advance rate of 69.78%. That means lenders are typically fronting roughly 70 cents on every dollar of invoice value, with the remainder acting as a buffer against non-payment. Zero defaults have been recorded across that portfolio.
The realized yield across the financed book sits at 29.3%. The loans themselves are short-dated, with maturities capped at 60 days, so capital turns over quickly and risk doesn’t accumulate over long horizons.
The $CREDI token functions as the yield-bearing instrument. Holders accrue interest daily with automatic reinvestment, and the token can be staked for terms ranging from 3 to 24 months with a fixed annual interest rate of 12% to 18%, backed by the underlying credit portfolios. The minimum entry point for staking is $10,000 USDC, and an OTC secondary market provides an exit route for investors who need liquidity before their term ends.
The addressable market CREDI is pitching into is large. Invoice and receivables financing is a subset of the broader private credit universe, which the protocol pegs at $1.75 trillion globally.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Starknet dočasně vypnul Bitcoin bridging po bezpečnostním incidentu u Atomiq. Uživatelské prostředky zůstaly v bezpečí a náprava má přijít během několika dní.
If you wanted to move Bitcoin onto Starknet today, you’re out of luck. Atomiq, the infrastructure provider powering BTC-to-Starknet swaps, yanked all of its swap routes offline on August 20 after what it described as sophisticated AI-assisted security attacks targeting its operations.
The good news: no user funds were lost. The less good news: one of Starknet’s key Bitcoin on-ramps is now a dead end until a replacement integration goes live, which Starknet says should happen within days.
What happened and why funds are safe Atomiq’s role in the Starknet ecosystem was straightforward but critical. It facilitated zero-slippage swaps between native BTC (including Lightning Network transactions) and Starknet-based assets like strkBTC.
Starknet moved quickly to clarify the damage, or rather the lack of it. The swaps relied on a trustless escrow model secured by Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus. In practical terms, that means the security of user funds didn’t depend on Atomiq staying online. The cryptographic guarantees were baked into the protocol layer, not the application layer.
Users who had swaps in progress aren’t stranded either. Atomiq’s web application remains accessible specifically so people can claim refunds on past transactions. The swap service is dead, but the refund counter is still open.
The replacement plan Starknet confirmed it is actively preparing a new integration to restore Bitcoin bridging capabilities. The timeline is aggressive: days, not weeks or months.
Starknet has positioned itself as a privacy-focused Layer 2 built on zero-knowledge rollup technology, where Bitcoin holders can access DeFi applications with enhanced privacy guarantees. The new integration is expected to include enhancements over the previous Atomiq-powered system, including existing swap services such as zero-slippage Bitcoin transactions and support for the strkBTC token.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Starknet už umožňuje přechod na kvantově odolné podpisy bez hard forku a bez změny adresy. Síť navíc staví na STARKs, které nejsou závislé na eliptických křivkách.
Skip to contentHow Starknet Can Upgrade for Quantum Resistance
Two weeks ago, a wallet that no quantum computer could ever break made a transfer on Starknet.
The transfer cost about six cents and settled on the mainnet, in public. You can look it up on the block explorer right now.
The account behind it is experimental and unaudited, built for research rather than production use. Still, real value moved through a signature no quantum computer can forge.
That was possible because a Starknet account sets its own rules for which signatures it will accept. This wallet switched from the elliptic-curve signature the rest of crypto relies on to a quantum-resistant one on its own, with no fork, no coordinated migration, and no new address.
That transaction is a useful place to start if you want to understand how Starknet can be upgraded for quantum-resistance.
The clock is already running
Most people in crypto know the threat in outline. A large enough quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm breaks the elliptic-curve cryptography that guards nearly every wallet in crypto, And the keys that keep your funds yours stop being secret.
What surprises people is that the quantum computer doesn’t have to exist yet for you to be exposed to it. An adversary can record encrypted blockchain data today and sit on it until the hardware catches up. The industry calls this harvest now, decrypt later.
So the useful question is how much work stands between a chain and the day that hardware arrives. Answering it means knowing where the danger actually sits.
Why almost no chain could do what that wallet did
A blockchain has two separate exposures to quantum.
The first is the account layer. That is the signature authorising a transaction from your wallet, and it is the one most people picture when they think about quantum risk.
The second is the verification layer. The cryptography the network uses to prove every transaction and balance is valid, the proof system sitting underneath the whole chain. Most people never think about it, and that is exactly the problem.
A quantum computer threatens both, because most chains use elliptic curves in both places. Fix one and neglect the other, and you are still exposed. A quantum-safe wallet on a chain whose proof system can be forged is a steel lock bolted to a cardboard box.
This is why so few networks actually qualify. Bitcoin and Ethereum secure accounts with elliptic-curve signatures wired straight into the protocol, and most zk-rollups make it worse, because the SNARK proof systems they run on are built on elliptic curves too. Fixing them means rebuilding core cryptography from the inside, and on the account side it also means a coordinated migration where every holder has to move funds to a new address type before a deadline.
Starknet begins somewhere else.
Starknet’s Unfair Advantage Both of Starknet’s advantages come from design choices made years before quantum became a headline.
Start with the verification layer. Starknet is built on STARKs, which prove computation using hash functions rather than elliptic curves. There is no known quantum attack that breaks a hash function. The best one, Grover’s algorithm, only speeds up brute-force guessing, and you cancel it out with a slightly larger hash. The layer that secures all value on Starknet was never quantum-vulnerable in the first place. That property is built into how STARKs work.
Now the account layer, which is where that six-cent transfer from a wallet comes from. On Starknet, every account is a smart contract. No signature scheme is hardwired into the protocol. Each account decides which signatures it accepts, in its own code.
That single design choice changes everything about a quantum migration:
A wallet can verify post-quantum signatures, because verification is just contract logic.No hard fork is required to adopt them.No network-wide migration is forced. Accounts upgrade one at a time, on each owner’s schedule.Accounts can swap their logic in place, keeping the same address and the same funds, so protecting yourself now does not lock you into a standard that may still change.Working code already exists, Falcon-512 is a post-quantum signature scheme on NIST’s standardization track. S2morrow demonstrated a working Falcon-512 account written in Cairo. OpenZeppelin published deployable versions, and built the account behind that mainnet transfer.
Adopting it took no fork and no permission. If something better than Falcon comes along, moving to it will work the same way.
The rest of the roadOn June 30, StarkWare published a roadmap to bring the whole network in line, in three phases.
Phase one secures all new activity. It replaces the last elliptic-curve-dependent hashing in places like state commitments and address derivation, so new transactions and contracts run on post-quantum foundations by default. This phase is already underway.
Phase two brings existing contracts forward, with tooling that lets them adopt quantum-safe storage without breaking their interfaces or forcing painful manual migrations.
Phase three moves in step with Ethereum. Two surfaces are shared with the base layer, the bridge that carries messages and assets between Starknet and Ethereum, and the data availability layer where Starknet posts its data. Both still rely on elliptic-curve cryptography inherited from Ethereum.
What matters is how much is left above that shared dependency. Ethereum’s own long-term roadmap points toward the same hash-based, STARK-friendly cryptography Starknet already runs on, so when Ethereum migrates, Starknet arrives with less remaining work than other major layer 2s.
Starknet: a head start you can usePicture the day a real quantum computer finally arrives. On most chains, your protection is somebody else’s decision, and you wait on a protocol fork and a governance deadline to move your funds to safety. On Starknet, that upgrade was a choice you could already make, on your own timeline, with the address you always used. For institutions treating quantum readiness as a compliance question, the same property means safety on a schedule they control rather than inherit.
Read the full roadmap and follow the progress at quantum.starkware.co.
Join our newsletterReceive notifications on Starknet updates
SuperVega has launched its public beta on Starknet, bringing options trading to the layer-2 network and giving users a way to place directional bets on cryptocurrency prices. The platform allows traders to profit from hitting specific price targets on digital assets, a feature that slots neatly into Starknet’s broader push into derivatives infrastructure.
Starknet already has Carmine Options serving as the primary options trading protocol on the network, offering European-style options on assets like ETH, STRK, and wBTC.
Advertisement
What SuperVega is building SuperVega’s approach centers on letting users “profit from price targets on cryptocurrencies,” which suggests a structure closer to binary or target-based options rather than the traditional European-style contracts that Carmine already offers.
The platform is currently in public beta. No specific metrics like total value locked, trading volume, or fee structures have been publicly disclosed.
Starknet’s derivatives ambitions On May 12, 2026, the network saw the launch of strkBTC, a privacy-enhanced wrapped Bitcoin asset that leverages Starknet’s growing privacy infrastructure. That launch came alongside broader developments in the STRK20 privacy framework.
Liquid staking features were integrated into the network as recently as July 29, 2026, adding another layer of composability that derivatives protocols can build on top of.
What this means for traders and investors SuperVega is a beta product with no track record, no publicly available audit information, and no performance history.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Sats Terminal spustil na Starknet BTC zajištěné půjčky v USDC s čistým ročním výnosem kolem -2,04 % při LTV 50 %. Odměny ve STRK mají pokrýt náklady na úroky.
Getting paid to borrow money sounds like a financial fever dream. Sats Terminal just made it real on Starknet.
The BTC lending platform announced its integration with Starknet on July 22, enabling users to borrow USDC against their Bitcoin collateral through the Vesu lending protocol at a net APR of approximately -2.04% at a 50% loan-to-value ratio. In English: borrowers walk away with more money than they owe in interest, courtesy of STRK token rewards that more than cover the borrowing costs.
How negative interest actually works Negative APRs aren’t magic. They’re subsidized. Starknet has allocated at least 100 million STRK tokens toward its rewards program, and those incentives are what make the economics work for borrowers.
Advertisement
Here’s the math on a concrete example. A borrower putting up 1 BTC as collateral can expect to earn roughly $1,997 annually from STRK rewards while paying approximately $1,344 in interest. That nets out to about $653 in the borrower’s pocket, just for taking out a loan.
The maximum loan-to-value ratio through Vesu can stretch up to 86%, though the juiciest negative rates come at the more conservative 50% LTV tier.
The integration runs through Vesu, a lending protocol on Starknet that positions itself as capital-efficient. Sats Terminal acts as the front-end interface, connecting Bitcoin holders to USDC liquidity without requiring them to sell their underlying BTC position. The loans are non-custodial, meaning users maintain control of their assets throughout the process.
Sats Terminal’s growing footprint The platform has onboarded over 100,000 unique wallets since its inception. Its backers include yzilabs, Coinbase Ventures, and Draper VC. Tim Draper himself highlighted the platform back in January 2026.
Co-founder Stanislav Havryliuk and his team have been building toward this kind of cross-chain integration. Moving onto Starknet, a ZK-rollup scaling solution originally designed for Ethereum, represents a bet that Bitcoin-native users want access to DeFi infrastructure beyond the Bitcoin network itself.
What this means for investors Negative rates funded by token rewards only work as long as the reward tokens maintain their value and the incentive programs keep running. STRK rewards that generate $1,997 annually today could generate significantly less if the token price drops or if Starknet decides to redirect those 100 million tokens elsewhere.
The 86% maximum LTV deserves attention from a risk perspective. High LTV ratios in volatile markets can lead to cascading liquidations. Conservative borrowers sticking to the 50% tier have meaningful buffer. Those pushing toward the ceiling are betting that Bitcoin’s price won’t move against them fast enough to trigger a margin call.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Starknet spustil STRK20, nativní rámec ochrany soukromí pro on-chain aktiva, který umožňuje skrýt zůstatky ERC-20, soukromé převody i swapy. První podporovaná aktiva jsou strkBTC a USDC.
Privacy on a public blockchain has always felt like a contradiction in terms. Every transaction is visible, every wallet balance is readable, and your entire financial history is one block explorer search away from being an open book. Starknet thinks it has a fix.
On June 9, 2026, Starknet launched STRK20, a native privacy framework built into its Ethereum Layer-2 ZK rollup architecture. The system lets users shield any ERC-20 token balance, execute private transfers, and run private swaps, all without spinning up a separate privacy coin or fragmenting liquidity into isolated pools.
Advertisement
How STRK20 actually works The framework runs on a note-based privacy pool: instead of broadcasting your token balance to the entire network, your assets are converted into encrypted “notes” that only you can open and spend. The proofs themselves are generated client-side using zero-knowledge cryptography, which means your device does the heavy lifting locally before anything touches the chain. On-chain, the network only verifies that a valid proof exists, not what the underlying transaction contains.
The first asset to use STRK20 was strkBTC, which went live on the framework following Starknet’s v0.14.2 protocol upgrade in April 2026. USDC support followed on June 25, 2026, extending privacy capabilities to one of crypto’s most widely used stablecoins. The system is designed so any ERC-20 token on Starknet can plug in without requiring separate liquidity. Supported wallets at launch include Xverse, AVNU, and Circle integrations.
The compliance piece, and why it matters STRK20 includes an encrypted viewing-key mechanism that allows users to selectively disclose transaction history to auditors, regulators, or legal counterparties without making that information public. Encrypted viewing keys can be held by third-party auditors, meaning a court order or compliance request can unlock a specific user’s transaction history without compromising anyone else’s privacy on the network.
What this means for Starknet’s competitive position Starknet’s rollout of STRK20 follows a deliberate build-up that began in March 2026 with initial privacy-related feature introductions, accelerating through the April 2026 full privacy engine implementation, and culminating in the June mainnet launch.
Starknet has signaled that upcoming phases will expand STRK20 into private lending products and cross-chain functionality.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
PANews July 12 news, Token Unlocks data shows that tokens such as DBR, ARB, YZY will see large unlocks next week, including:
deBridge (DBR) will unlock approximately 618 million tokens on July 17 at 8:00 am Beijing time, representing about 11.4% of the circulating supply, worth about $10.1 million;
Arbitrum (ARB) will unlock approximately 92.65 million tokens on July 16 at 9:00 pm Beijing time, representing about 1.65% of the circulating supply, worth about $8.5 million;
YZY (YZY) will unlock approximately 20.83 million tokens on July 17 at 11:00 am Beijing time, representing about 4.1% of the circulating supply, worth about $6.1 million;
Starknet (STRK) will unlock approximately 127 million tokens on July 15 at 8:00 am Beijing time, representing about 3.74% of the circulating supply, worth about $3.9 million;
Sei (SEI) will unlock approximately 55.56 million tokens on July 15 at 8:00 pm Beijing time, representing about 0.91% of the circulating supply, worth about $2.8 million.
Starknet 8. července spustí na mainnetu verzi v0.14.3, která zavádí dynamické gas poplatky navázané na cenu STRK a snižuje cílový gas na blok o 30 %. Upgrade má zrychlit síť a zkrátit latenci transakcí.
Starknet is rolling out its v0.14.3 upgrade to mainnet on July 8, bringing a suite of changes designed to make the Layer 2 network cheaper, faster, and harder to break. The headline features: dynamic gas fees that adjust to STRK’s token price, a 30% cut to target gas per block, and a quiet but meaningful shift toward quantum-resistant cryptography.
For a network whose native token is currently trading around $0.03 and whose total value locked sits at roughly $204 million, this is less a victory lap and more a necessary step to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded L2 landscape.
What’s actually changing The most consequential piece of the upgrade is SNIP-35, a proposal that introduces dynamic L2 gas base fee adjustments. Instead of static minimum gas fees, the network will now automatically recalibrate fees based on two variables: the fluctuating price of the STRK token and real-time network congestion.
Advertisement
The second major change involves block architecture. Starknet v0.14.3 reduces the target L2 gas per block by 30% while keeping the maximum block size unchanged. The result is smaller but more frequent blocks, which translates directly into shorter block production times and reduced transaction latency.
The upgrade also introduces Keccak support for client-side proving and transitions specific operations from Pedersen hashing to BLAKE hashing. The BLAKE switch is explicitly aimed at quantum resistance.
Breaking changes and developer migration Starknet v0.14.3 deprecates RPC v0.8, meaning any developer or application still relying on that version needs to migrate before the switch flips.
StarkWare, the primary development team behind Starknet, has been providing migration guidance ahead of the July 8 date. The testnet activation happened in June, following multiple delays from earlier targets like June 22, giving developers a window to test their applications against the new protocol.
The mainnet migration itself is expected to incur approximately 8 minutes of downtime.
What this means for investors STRK trading at around $0.03 puts it in a challenging position. The dynamic fee adjustment mechanism ties gas fees to STRK’s market price, creating a feedback loop where network revenue remains somewhat stable in dollar terms regardless of token volatility.
Watch the TVL numbers in the two weeks following July 8. If locked value climbs meaningfully from the current $204 million, it suggests the fee and latency improvements are translating into actual user behavior changes.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
StarkWare zveřejnil třífázový kvantově odolný plán pro Starknet a tvrdí, že průmysl nemá omluvu zůstávat zranitelný vůči budoucím kvantovým útokům. Základem je kryptografie STARK, kterou označuje za inherentně odolnou vůči kvantovým hrozbám.
Zero-knowledge scaling company StarkWare has released a quantum-resistant roadmap for Starknet, arguing that other chains will remain exposed if the industry is “too stubborn or stupid” to act.
In an announcement on Tuesday, Starknet framed its three-phased quantum-resistant roadmap as evidence that the crypto industry has no excuse for remaining vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks.
“The tried-and-tested cryptography exists to secure every crypto key in the world, if necessary changes are made, and the only reason anyone will remain vulnerable is if heads remain buried in the sand,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, CEO at StarkWare.
Efforts to quantum-proof blockchains are accelerating as some researchers warn that quantum computing could outpace blockchain’s defenses and cryptographically relevant quantum machines could be ready before 2030.
The Bitcoin community remains divided on how to approach securing old coins against the quantum threat, while other networks are forging ahead with quantum roadmaps.
Ben-Sasson said Starknet can become resistant to quantum attacks by “seizing on its architecture advantage.” Its underlying cryptography is zero-knowledge STARK (Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge) proofs, which are “inherently post-quantum safe.”
Ben-Sasson said that if Starknet can become quantum-resistant by “seizing on this cryptography,” then anyone else can do it by choosing the right cryptography. “We need to be nimble in blockchain and crypto,” he said.
“There’s an awful irony in the notion that a young industry born from rejecting the way things have always been done is stalling and procrastinating about making changes for quantum security.”He added that crypto has an “elliptical illusion,” distorting reality around elliptic-curve cryptography, the current standard for securing blockchains.
Believing that this will be quantum resistant is “false confidence” that is leaving the industry “dangerously complacent,” he said.
Some migration problems are genuinely hard, involving technical trade-offs, governance decisions, and dependencies that no single team controls, he added, but said: “difficulty is not an excuse for delay.”
“The crypto industry shouldn’t need wake-up calls from the White House or anyone else. We should all be acting and seizing on the best cryptography that exists.”Starknet’s three-phase roadmap The first phase involves swapping out some of its current security math (Pedersen hashing) for quantum-resistant versions and adding quantum-resistant signatures.
Phase two focuses on migration tooling that quietly upgrades existing smart contracts to the new quantum-safe standard, without forcing developers to manually rebuild apps.
Phase three covers dependencies that Starknet cannot resolve alone, which largely depend on Ethereum’s quantum upgrade roadmap.
Circle, Ethereum, Solana, Tezos and Algorand have all proposed quantum-proof roadmaps, while the Bitcoin community remains at loggerheads.
Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Na Starknet přichází STRK20, které přidává soukromé převody USDC a shieldované zůstatky bez změny standardu ERC-20. Soukromé transakce jsou zároveň auditovatelné přes viewing key.
Skip to contentHow STRK20 brings confidential stablecoin payments to DeFi
Stablecoins have become the unit of account for onchain finance. They settle trades, move treasury, pay contributors, and back most of the liquidity that DeFi runs on. But every one of those transfers carries a cost that rarely gets named: it is permanently, irreversibly public.
On Starknet, this has changed with privacy features for USDC, built with STRK20. With STRK20, Starknet’s native privacy framework, USDC on Starknet gains confidential capabilities: shieldable, privately transferable, and usable across DeFi, without leaving the standard ERC-20 behind.
The transparency problem with blockchain transactionsSend stablecoins on any chain and you broadcast the full transaction to anyone watching: the sender, the recipient, the exact amount, and the timestamp, all written to a public ledger forever. For a base layer that’s a feature. For the entity actually moving the money, it’s an exposure.
A treasury rebalance reveals position size and intent. A market-making wallet leaks its strategy with every fill. Counterparties can map your entire balance history before you’ve signed a single agreement, and MEV searchers can reconstruct your behaviour from a single linked address. The transparency that makes the network trustworthy makes its most important asset hostile to anyone who needs discretion, which is to say most enterprises, most institutions, and a fair number of individuals who simply expect their finances to be their own.
Workarounds exist, but they fragment liquidity, demand new tokens, or wrap privacy in a separate app users have to trust and migrate to. None of that is the same thing as privacy on the asset you already hold.
Introducing USDC privacy features with STRK20STRK20 is a privacy framework for all ERC-20 tokens on Starknet. It lets any ERC-20 support shielded balances and private transfers without altering the token contract and without asking wallets or apps to rebuild from scratch. USDC is among the first stablecoins on Starknet to have these privacy capabilities.
The model is:
– Shield USDC to hold a private balance, invisible to outside observers on the public ledger.
– Unshield at any time to return to standard, fully transparent ERC-20 behaviour.
– Transfer shielded USDC privately, with asset type, amount, and participating wallets all hidden from outside view.
Crucially, this is privacy at the protocol level, not an app integration. It’s the same USDC, in the same wallet, private when you need it to be and visible when you don’t. There’s no second token, no bridge into a walled garden, no duplicated balance to reconcile.
How it worksShielding moves USDC into a privacy pool where balances and transfers are protected by zero-knowledge proofs rather than published in the clear. A private transfer proves the transaction is valid (funds exist, the sender is authorised, nothing is double-spent) without revealing what moved, how much, or between whom.
Proof generation happens operator-side; verification happens at the sequencer level, using the same infrastructure Starknet already uses to prove its own blocks. Unshielding reverses the process, returning USDC to the public ledger whenever the user chooses.
And it won’t price privacy as a tax. Unlike approaches that skim a percentage of transaction value, STRK20 charges a fixed fee per transaction, closer to a gas fee than a toll. That flat cost is what makes private stablecoin payments viable at real volume rather than only for the largest transfers.
Confidential DeFi on Ready X and XversePrivacy that strands your assets isn’t very useful, so STRK20 is built for assets to stay composable. From the privacy pool, users will be able to swap in and out of USDC confidentially on Ready and XVerse wallets
That means you can hold a private balance and still participate in onchain markets without re-exposing yourself the moment you want to do something with it. These are the first integrations, not the last; more DeFi venues will follow as the framework rolls out.
Compliance architecture and viewing keysPrivacy and auditability are usually framed as a trade-off. STRK20 is designed to deliver both, by building compliance rather than bolting it on.
When a user shields, they automatically register a viewing key. The key is scoped to that user and that user alone. If a legitimate legal request is made, a designated third-party auditing entity can use it to reconstruct *that specific user’s* transaction history, and nothing else. No other participant in the pool is affected, and access sits with authorised bodies under legal process, never with counterparties, observers, or the users themselves peering into one another.
The result is privacy for users by default, with a clean, scoped path to auditability for regulators when the law requires it.
Why StarknetNone of this is incidental to Starknet; it’s a direct consequence of what the network was built on. Years of zero-knowledge research and engineering by StarkWare produced a STARK-based proving and verification stack efficient enough to make private payments both cheap and scalable, rather than a premium feature reserved for whales.
That same efficiency is why STRK20 can support complex private payments at scale where other privacy designs hit a wall. And it isn’t experimental: verification runs on the very infrastructure Starknet has used to prove its own blocks in production for over five years. Shielded USDC inherits that foundation.
Stablecoins gave onchain finance a unit of account. STRK20 is set to give it a private one.
—
Confidential stablecoin payments are here on Starknet. Follow the rollout and get the technical details at strk20.starknet.io
Join our newsletterReceive notifications on Starknet updates
Starknet zveřejnil návod, jak prostřednictvím kompatibilních peněženek zapnout soukromé DeFi přes STRK20. Uživatelé mohou skrýt aktiva ERC-20 a obchodovat, půjčovat i stakovat bez veřejného zveřejnění detailů.
Starknet just made private DeFi about as easy as toggling on dark mode. The Ethereum layer 2 network has published a walkthrough for accessing its privacy features through compatible wallets, turning what used to be a multi-step cryptographic headache into something approaching a one-click experience.
The guide centers on Starknet’s STRK20 privacy framework, which went live around June 9. It allows users to shield ERC-20 assets directly from wallets like Xverse and Ready, then interact with DeFi protocols, including swaps, lending, and staking, without broadcasting every detail of their financial life to the entire blockchain.
Advertisement
How the shielding actually works Starknet’s approach lets users convert standard tokens into shielded versions through their wallet interface. The framework is designed to maintain composability with public liquidity pools, meaning private transactions can tap into existing liquidity rather than being confined to isolated ecosystems where shielded assets could only interact with other shielded assets.
Transactions using the privacy features settle in under five seconds at low costs, according to Starknet. That’s roughly the same speed as a standard Starknet transaction, meaning the privacy layer doesn’t introduce meaningful friction.
strkBTC and the Bitcoin angle Starknet launched strkBTC back in May, a shielded representation of Bitcoin on its network. strkBTC lets Bitcoin holders participate in Starknet’s DeFi ecosystem without their BTC positions being publicly visible. Both Xverse and Ready wallets support one-click shielding and unshielding of strkBTC alongside other assets, making the process uniform regardless of the underlying token.
The compliance question The STRK20 framework includes compliance features built into its architecture: viewing keys are encrypted for an integrity council, creating a mechanism that blends user privacy with regulatory requirements. This design allows transactions to be private by default yet auditable under specific conditions, occupying a middle ground that could work for compliance-conscious players.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
StarkWare představil Private KYC, zero-knowledge systém na STRK20, privacy vrstvě Starknetu, který umožní ověřit například věk nad 18 let bez předání pasu centrálnímu ověřovateli. Demo míří na vlády a instituce, ne na ostrý produkt.
@StarkWareLtd has unveiled a zero-knowledge identity system designed to let users pass a KYC check without surrendering their personal data to a central verifier. The prototype, called Private KYC, is built on STRK20, @Starknet's privacy layer, and works by flipping the logic of how identity verification is typically done.
How it works A user scans their passport using their phone's NFC chip. That identity data is then encrypted and bound to their own Starknet account rather than stored on a third-party server. When a KYC check is required, the system generates a zero-knowledge proof of just the fact that matters, such as confirming the user is over 18, while name, date of birth, and document number remain sealed. No central verifier holds a copy of the document, so there is no database to breach.
STRK20, which launched in early June, introduces zero-knowledge privacy features for ERC-20 tokens, letting users shield balances and make private transfers without moving assets to a separate privacy chain. The technical architecture relies on client-side zero-knowledge proofs built with StarkWare's Stwo prover and Cairo programming language. Private KYC extends that same infrastructure into identity verification.
Targeting a well-documented problem The timing of the demo is pointed. A KYC store becomes a data honeypot the moment it concentrates identity records someone else wants, and that concentration is something the rulebook compels, not something a control choice creates. The scale of recent incidents makes the case plainly: IDmerit, disclosed in February 2026, exposed a data set running to roughly 1 billion records, including approximately 203 million US records. Unlike traditional passwords or credit card numbers, biometric data cannot be changed if compromised, posing long-term security risks. If fingerprints or iris patterns are stolen, the victim is permanently vulnerable to identity theft.
StarkWare's architecture sidesteps this problem by design. Because no raw document is ever handed to a verifier, there is no archive to steal. StarkWare chief executive Eli Ben-Sasson has said zero-knowledge systems could allow future investigations to request narrower information, though the approach has not yet faced broad regulatory testing, and institutions will still need to assess its legal, security, and operational controls before adoption.
For now, Private KYC is a demonstration pitched at government and institutional audiences, not a live product. Whether regulators will accept a ZK proof as a substitute for a stored document copy remains an open question. But as centralized identity databases continue to attract attackers, the architectural argument for an alternative is only getting stronger.
Sources:
Starknet: Make ERC-20 Tokens Private with STRK20
Finextra: The KYC Data Honeypot Is a Retention Mandate, Not a Security Failure
Fincrime Central: IDMerit data breach, 1 billion records exposed
