Starknet considers L1 transition - live with Eli Ben-Sasson

Episode 46 of The Starting Block, hosted by Gareth Jenkinson, was broadcasted live with StarkWare Founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson.

Key topics
• Starknet community voted 93% to research becoming a post-quantum secure L1.
• Ben-Sasson warns no blue-chip crypto tokens are currently post-quantum secure.
• OpenAI's 700+ math breakthroughs conspicuously omit cryptographic constructions.
• AI has fundamentally disrupted traditional mathematical research, per Ben-Sasson.
• Zcash-Starknet integration enables privacy-preserving DeFi via near intents.

Outline

00:00 - Introduction
01:07 - The Block Briefing
04:53 - Starknet L1 & Quantum Threat
11:31 - AI's Impact on Math & Security
15:35 - Zcash & Privacy's Future
17:47 - Wrap-Up & Tomorrow's Guest

 

Summary
The Block Briefing opened with South Korea poised to delay its 22% crypto gains tax for a fourth time, potentially pushing the start date to 2029 to align with the OECD's global framework, giving Korean traders two more tax-free years. Indian exchange CoinDCX admitted losing nearly $16 million after attackers exploited deprecated deposit wallets left over from a July 2025 breach, where an automated sweeping service had quietly stopped working. Hardware wallet maker Keystone disclosed a Shopify store breach that exposed customer names, addresses, and order history, contradicting the company's claim that it wiped shipping data after 180 days. Bitcoin briefly fell below $80,000 on Saturday, liquidating over $36 million in positions — more than $404 million of which were longs — amid spot ETF outflows and Arthur Hayes announcing he had sold his directional book. A federal judge dismissed the criminal case against Argentina's President Javier Milei over his promotion of the Libra token, clearing him, his sister Karina, and Hayden Davis among others. Senator Richard Blumenthal separately called for records from Tether over payments to consulting firms tied to former White House crypto advisor Bo Heinz while stablecoin legislation was being negotiated.

In the Hot Seat, Ben-Sasson explained that Starknet's community voted 93% in favor of researching a move away from Ethereum to become a fully post-quantum secure Layer 1, driven by concern that Ethereum's security layer cannot upgrade fast enough to meet quantum and AI-driven threats. He said the research phase should take roughly a month, with development expected to follow at a rapid pace given strong market urgency. He noted that virtually none of today's blue-chip tokens are post-quantum secure, a concern he hears directly from asset allocators, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds. On the OpenAI mathematics release, he speculated that the absence of any cryptographic construction breakthroughs among the 700-plus results either means breaks exist but are being withheld, or that near-breaks have been found that labs are reluctant to publish.

Ben-Sasson described being personally shocked that AI has effectively ended traditional mathematical research as he knew it, with luminaries now unable to compete with AI on proving breakthrough results. He said all coding at StarkWare now involves heavy AI usage. On Zcash, which he co-founded but is no longer involved with day to day, he expressed support for the protocol while noting his current focus is on post-quantum secure, programmable privacy on Starknet — including integrations with Zcash via near intents that allow privacy-preserving DeFi. He confirmed that Starknet becoming an L1 is specifically about the speed of post-quantum upgrades, acknowledging Ethereum has other issues he left for a separate conversation.

About the guest
Eli Ben-Sasson is the co-founder and CEO of StarkWare, an Israeli blockchain technology company that uses zero-knowledge STARK proofs to address scalability and privacy on Ethereum and beyond via its flagship network Starknet. A former tenured professor at the Technion and a founding scientist of Zcash, he holds a PhD in theoretical computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is the co-inventor of the STARK, FRI, and Zerocash cryptographic protocols.