Ecosystem Data Hits New Highs: Is Starknet, Championing Privacy and Bitcoin Narratives, on the Verge of an Explosion?

Author: Pink Brains

Translation: Tim, PANews

Starknet is in the early stages of a Solana-style rebound.

This L2 is less frequently mentioned, but it employs unique technology and focuses on building highly available products.

• Since July, DeFi TVL has tripled, now reaching about $300 million, close to its all-time high
• Stablecoin market cap hit an all-time high at $154 million
• In the past three months, it ranked second in net capital inflows, with $584 million in net inflows
• Active accounts are trending upward, reaching 50,000 to 60,000 daily

Why has Starknet made such progress?

First, Starknet did not simply copy Ethereum’s existing solutions but built its DeFi ecosystem from scratch.

STRK Native Staking: The first L2 token with actual use cases. Through Endur.fi’s LST product, users can earn about a 7% annual yield. Over 1 billion STRK staked within a year (about 22% of circulating supply, up 120% in the past three months).

BTC Native Staking: The first dual-token staking mechanism at the Starknet consensus layer. In just one month since launch, 1,791 BTC have been staked, valued at about $166 million.

Staking is now live on wallets such as Ready, Braavos, and Xverse.

The institutional-grade custody platform Anchorage also supports BTC staking on the Starknet network.

Starknet is currently one of the most liquid Bitcoin Layer 2 networks and sits at the core of the BTCFi narrative.

It supports BTC cross-chain transfers from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other L2 networks, BTC staking, and out-of-the-box DeFi suites.

• Re7 Capital: Offers institutional-grade strategies, including mRe7 Yield (stablecoin yield) and mRe7 Bitcoin (Bitcoin yield), tokenized via the Midas RWA platform.
• Endur.fi: The largest LST project on Starknet. Holds 60 million STRK (annual yield 7.75%) and 340 BTC.
• Vesu: Offers BTC-collateralized lending and looping strategies. Users can deposit wBTC, tBTC, LBTC, and SolvBTC to earn up to 2.5% annual deposit rate, and borrow USDT, USDC at an annual rate of about 2.8%. Total deposits have exceeded $60 million, with $19 million in loans.
• Extended, Avnu, and Ekubo Protocol: Focused on BTC trading and liquidity. Ekubo is the largest AMM DEX on Starknet, featuring Uni v4-like extensibility, DCA support, and soon-to-launch limit order mode.
• Uncap and Opus: Allow users to borrow Starknet native stablecoins against BTC collateral.
• 0D Finance, Troves, and Starknet Earn: Offer convenient one-click DeFi strategies

Starknet is also enhancing its interoperability.

In December, Starknet will support LayerZero, Stargate Finance, native USDC, CCTP v2, and NEAR interoperability mechanisms.

This could accelerate stablecoin inflows and promote cross-chain trading between assets like STRK, ZEC, BTC, and SOL.

Starknet is heavily promoting the privacy narrative.

StarkWare’s ZK tech stack supports three of the top ten perpetual DEXes, all privacy-focused. Competition with Hyperliquid and Aster is currently intense.

• edgeX (built on Starknet): $170 billion in 30-day perpetual trading volume
• Paradex (independent chain): $26 billion in 30-day perpetual trading volume, $144 million TVL
• Extended (Rollup scaling solution): $28 billion in 30-day perpetual trading volume, $99 million TVL

Indeed, as privacy becomes a key feature, privacy DEXes built on StarkWare and Starknet technology have even greater growth potential. Starknet’s zero-knowledge proof technology not only enhances transaction privacy but also balances scalability and security, laying the foundation for long-term DeFi value.

Ethereum + Bitcoin + Zcash = Starknet

Ztarknet is an L2 network based on Starknet, designed specifically for Zcash. It runs high-throughput applications on CairoVM and uses STARK proofs to settle state on the Zcash mainnet.

It adds base layer privacy features, scalable programmability, and post-quantum security for ZEC.

Yes, StarkWare is also developing Zoro, a Zcash light client utilizing STARK proofs, aiming to compress Zcash’s chain verification process into concise and verifiable proofs.

The Starknet ecosystem will fully support Zcash. This means Zcash will be able to leverage Starknet’s high-performance infrastructure, including the Cairo programming language and STARK proof technology, to enhance scalability, privacy, and programmability while maintaining interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem.

Starknet is designed with quantum resistance.

Vitalik recently warned that quantum computers may break the elliptic curve cryptography protecting Bitcoin and Ethereum within four years.

• Starknet uses STARK proofs. Unlike ECC, which relies on large integer factorization (easily broken by quantum computers), STARKs are based on collision-resistant hash functions, which quantum computers lack efficient attacks for. Mathematically, Starknet is post-quantum secure.
• On most Layer 1 networks, private keys equal wallets. Starknet’s smart contract wallet mechanism allows security to be directly upgraded via protocol upgrades without moving funds—a fundamental difference from EOA wallets.
• Quantum-safe signatures are typically large in size, but Starknet can batch-compress them into proofs, enabling Bitcoin or Ethereum networks to verify them at lower gas costs while reducing base layer processing load.

In short: Starknet is at the intersection of the most critical paths in the crypto industry.

The technology is ready; now we wait for market validation.