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The crypto project Starknet, which was originally created as a technical add-on for scaling Ethereum, has announced plans to become a fully independent blockchain. The StarkWare team has put a radical question to a community vote: should the project break free from the control of the main altcoin network and move to the status of an autonomous Layer 1?
The market reacted to the prospect of this "divorce" as a powerful financial trigger. In the first weeks of October, the native STRK token had already soared 200%, then pulled back along with the rest of the industry. But today, right on the day the official vote launched, the charts went up again, with the price gaining 25% at one point.
Trading activity has shifted entirely to derivatives: the daily trading volume on the futures market reached $894.84 million, almost eight times the spot sector's figure ($116.38 million). The market is aggressively digesting this flurry of orders alongside today's scheduled unlock of 127 million tokens for early investors.
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Behind this decision lies a cold mathematical calculation: Starknet is trying to protect itself against the quantum computers of the future. The head of the project, Eli Ben-Sasson, is convinced that the development of AI has brought the arrival of machines capable of breaking modern encryption closer.
Starknet is technically ready to deploy quantum resistance as early as 2027. The problem is that it is currently tightly tied to the slow Ethereum, which plans to upgrade its security only by the end of 2029. To avoid losing two years, Starknet wants to take full control into its own hands.
99% "for" and one very big risk. How much it costs to leave Ethereum
The poll on the Snapshot platform, which will run until October 22, has already shown total unanimity: the "For" option is gaining 99.88% of the votes. At the same time, the project's tokenomics will not change: STRK will remain the network's only settlement asset, and the bridges to Ethereum will keep working.
However, investors should understand that the current referendum is preliminary (non-binding) and only gives the green light to research. The technical transition itself will require months of preparation and new votes.
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The main price of this independence is security. Currently, Starknet transactions are protected by the authority of Ethereum and the billions of dollars of its staked validators. Having set sail on its own, the project will have to build its own protection system, whose reliability will rest solely on the capitalization of the STRK token.
At the moment, it stands at $580.24 million, which is incomparably smaller than Ethereum's, but the developers are deliberately accepting this trade-off for the sake of a technological edge.