StarkWare Company Intelligence

With 74% of all dApps running on its network, Ethereum is home to around three thousand dApps today. As the popularity of DeFi, NFTs and blockchain games soared last year, Ethereum is facing serious network congestion issues, struggling to meet the demands in its ecosystem. Users are frustrated with the slow transaction time and high transaction fees - the average Ethereum gas fee is in the double digits, often surpassing the $100 mark. In order for Ethereum to maintain its position as a dominant layer 1 network and reach global scale, solving the scalability issue will be key. Ethereum developers are working on the ETH 2.0 upgrades to enhance the system’s security and scalability, but delays in this update have provided room for alternative scalability solutions to grow. Many developers are attacking the scalability from diverse angles, some creating new layer 1 networks, such as Solana and Avalanche, while others are focusing on developing various on-chain and off-chain scaling options.

StarkWare specializes in providing layer 2 scaling solutions, which aim to maximize scalability while still utilizing Ethereum network’s security. Since June 2020, StarkWare provided permissioned scalability solutions for select partners via StarkEx. Using this battle-tested STARK technology, StarkWare shifted its efforts to developing StarkNet, a decentralized, general purpose ZK rollup system with unlimited scalability potential.