This time, we're mad for Madara !!
Starknet is going full steam ahead on becoming the most scalable layer 2 solution on Ethereum to date. Read about our zkEVM project, new Rust sequencer and storage proofs in this week's newsletter.
tl;dr
A brief intro to fractal scaling
Kakarot and zkEVMs
Madara as a path to building Layer 3s
Storage proofs
Upcoming events
It’s all about the fractals …
Gone are the days of monolithic blockchains - modular is the new mantra. And if Ethereum can benefit from an accelerated execution environment - why can’t we ? Off late - the Starknet community has been building tooling to help you deploy application specific Layer 3s on top of the existing Starknet L2.
But … what’s a layer ??
Before this reaches a point of nausea, let’s first define what a layer is. As per Vitalik, a “layer 2” should be defined as a system which -
Exists to increase scalability of Ethereum, i.e enhances transactional throughput or reduces the cost of transacting for a blockchain
Follows the "blockchain within a blockchain" pattern - has its own mechanism for processing transactions and maintains an internal state
Inherits the full safety guarantees of Ethereum.
And what’s with layer 3s, 4s and 5s ??
Some on-chain apps need customized scaling solutions, for instance if they use a unique data format that doesn’t generalize very well. Others may need more privacy. And yet, enterprise applications may just not want to put their data on chain to begin with.
This presents a vast variety of options that a general scaling solution has to account for.
By building application specific roll-ups, you create a division of concerns. Each rollup can work more efficiently. If these custom solutions settle on an already accelerated solution, such as an L2 - you make the entire ecosystem way faster and more flexible.
Intro to Kakarot
Kakarot is a type 3 (soon-to-be type 2.5) zkEVM, built on top of the CairoVM. The projected was kicked off in 2022 by our very own Shahar Papini and Abdel and has now grown into an ecosystem wide project.
The idea behind Kakarot is simple - the EVM is a mature, well-defined VM architecture. 142 opcodes, 9 precompiles, and a democratic process to update these opcodes or precompiles. Should one rewrite the EVM in Cairo, one would get a zkEVM “for free”, i.e. have an EVM which executes Solidity code in a completely STARK-provable way.
Article | Playground | Github
Madara
Madara is a Substrate based sequencer, that any user or project can use to run their own Starknet appchain. It is meant to be the go to software for Layer 3s on the Starknet ecosystem. Madara enables project to process their user transactions in a dedicated environment, with high TPS and low latency, generate a proof of execution and verify it on Starknet.
Learn more here, and don’t miss the community call here.
So basically,
Madara + Kakarot = Substrate & CairoVM based zkEVM L3s 🔥!
Storage Proofs
Imagine you have a giant book filled with information, and you want to prove that a specific piece of information is in that book. Instead of requiring someone to go through the entire book to find the information, you create a small "proof" that can easily demonstrate the presence of that information in the book.
This "proof" is what we call a storage proof.
In the context of blockchains, storage proofs allow you to create a small and verifiable proof that certain data exists within the blockchain’s state at a particular point in time. This is an incredibly powerful idea that allows different chains to “communicate“ with each other in a trustless way.
To learn more about the potential use cases of storage proofs in improving oracles, enhancing AA and much more - see this.
Upcoming events
As always, the Starknet ecosystem offers ample opportunities for you to supplement your online learning with in-person events. Here are a few you might want to sign up for …
So Basically,
Now you know about the 2 most powerful projects on the tooling side of the Starknet ecosystem - Kakarot and Madara. You have also been introduced to the idea of storage proofs, and will hopefully have read about how awesome they are in the article I shared.
Finally, I hope you are excited about the events we are hosting worldwide in the coming few weeks, and will register yourself for the closest one as soon as possible.