Open-sourcing of the STARK Prover technology will lead to greater developer participation and community collaborations for building dApps on the platform.
Blockchain scaling systems StarkWare, which reached an $8 billion valuation last year, is planning to open source its Ethereum scaling system and core cryptographic software tool. The announcement came during the two-day StarkWare Sessions 2023 event in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Israel-based StarkWare is behind the technology that tackles the scalability issues of Ethereum such as slow throughput or high gas fees. The company currently has two platforms, the first is the scaling engine StarkEx. The other is StarkNet which puts technology into the hands of developers building decentralized applications (DApps).
As per the latest development, StarkWare plans to open source the STARK Prover technology which powers these two platforms. The StarkNet is the widely adopted Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum based on the ZK-STARKs technology. Similarly, the prover looks after generating cryptographic proofs to compress transactions and improve overall scalability. Speaking on the development, StarkWare co-founder and President Eli Ben-Sasson said:
“Every step we take to provide infrastructure, and to make it accessible and decentralized, is a catalyst for devs to build. And the quicker and more broadly they build, the faster we’ll see mass onboarding to solutions that truly enable people to manage their own funds. So there’s a direct line between open-sourcing key tech and popularizing self-custody. This marks a significant step for scaling Ethereum and cryptography, as STARK technology becomes a publicly available resource.”
Benefits of StarkNet Prover
As the StarkNet Prover technology goes open-source, it will allow for more individuals to review the code. This will ultimately help in detecting bugs and increase transparency. The team at StarkWare said that this move resembles a positive step towards the greater decentralization of StarkNet.
StarkWare launched the StarkNet solution back in November 2021 on the Ethereum mainnet. Since then, the StarkWare team has gradually open-sourced elements of the StarkNet stack including the StarkNet sequencer, client software Papyrus, and the Cairo 1.0 programming language. this latest decision marks the completion of open-sourcing the full StarkNet software stack.
This step will also boost the accessibility of StarkWare to developers and greater collaboration within the community. “We think of the Prover as the magic wand of STARK technology,” said Ben-Sasson. “But of course, it’s not actually magic, it’s sturdy cryptography and today we’re saying that everyone who wants should make it their own. They should know exactly how it works, modify the code, edit the code, and distribute it further.”
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