Starknet's "big one" is finally here. What impact will it have on subsequent projects?

Author: Haotian, independent researcher Source: X, @tmel0211

If Starknet's Token economics works, it will inevitably promote the issuance of Tokens for ZK projects such as zkSync, Scroll, and Linea.

In the past two days, @Starknet has implemented a super large airdrop operation targeting 1.3 million addresses with a total amount of more than 700 million pieces. It has almost taken care of all levels. Everyone involved in the ecology is well organized! So, how do you view the subsequent impact of this Starknet airdrop feast? Let me talk about my thoughts:

1) The standards, scale and coverage of Starknet’s airdrops have always been low, and various scandals and rumors continue. A few people once thought that they were going to be "repulsed" by the collective. Against this background, the sudden announcement of Eligible with over 1.3 million addresses and 700 million STRKs, I believe has made many people overjoyed.

To be honest, as a popular project that has been deeply discussed, Starknet’s airdrop standard design is really difficult to deal with. It needs to balance the interests of all parties and avoid airdrops. The selling pressure overwhelms the incentive effect, so it is difficult to have absolutely satisfactory results. In the end, Starknet chose to provide a large-scale favor to early ECMP contributors, GitHub open source developers, Starknet users, etc.

This is likely to be the final choice for focus projects such as zkSync and LayerZero. When the brand influence reaches a certain level, the sun-drenched airdrop operation is the most effective. wise. The difference lies in which hair-pullers will be screened out according to what criteria, and which direction will become the project party’s preference? For example, Starknet clearly prefers developers and early ECMP contributor groups. At best, the "hairing" business increases the risk, loses the cost-effectiveness of input and output, and will continue to be involved.

2) Previously, I wrote that Starknet's airdrop was a "redemption action" because the ZK series Layer 2 project has stayed in the technology field for a long time. In the advantage narrative stage, the comprehensive data indicators of developer resources, ecological projects, market TVL, user volume, user experience, etc. are far less than expected. In this case, the purpose of bringing out the trump card of Tokenomics is more to further build and strengthen the ecological market. Obviously, both Starknet and zkSync are worried about this.

In particular, the overall lock-up data of Layer 2 exceeds 25.5B, while the top 5 Layer 2s in terms of brand reputation account for less than 0.2B. How does data give subsequent secondary market investors confidence? And issuing Tokens to subsidize developers and users can quickly make up for this shortcoming. If you don’t believe that Tokenomics has such a great magic power, you can appreciate it by looking at Blast, which has already exceeded US$1.8 billion in TVL before the technology has been implemented.

I personally tend to believe that Tokenomics will bring continuous power to the ZK ecosystem, especially since STRK participates as a Gas fee subsidy In the process of project development and user interaction experience, there is still a lot of room for imagination.

3) The Cancun upgrade has a significantly greater market boost for ZK-Rollup than OP-Rollup. If the Cancun upgrade is the icing on the cake for OP-Rollup, then it must be a timely help for ZK-Rollup. I have analyzed the reason before. With the same Blob block capacity, ZK series Layer 2 can enlarge the upper limit of Layer 2 TPS, thereby reducing the Gas amortization cost. Coupled with the potential Gas subsidy war, in theory, there will be more developers and users pour into the ZK ecosystem to build. Under normal circumstances, the Cancun upgrade will be a turning point for the ZK ecosystem to catch up in all aspects and counterattack OP.

Starknet rushed to launch Tokenomics before the Cancun upgrade, which undoubtedly expressed its determination to fight against the odds after the Cancun upgrade. If Starknet’s Token Economics works, it will surely promote the issuance of Tokens for ZK projects such as zkSync, Scroll, and Linea. And the potential of ZK technology will ultimately be driven by "applications". The market needs to have several popular applications such as games to drive further prosperity of the Starknet market ecosystem.

4) The current Layer 2 competition landscape has become complex and anxious. In the past, technologies and brand reputations represented by Arbitrum, Starknet, zkSync, etc. had some first movers. The advantageous Layer projects all bear great pressure of expected implementation, while Stack’s strategic approach is still the traditional To B VC narrative thinking, which is obviously not attractive enough to attract secondary market investors;

< p style="text-align: left;">At the same time, a large number of new challengers have emerged trying to break the Layer 2 pattern. For example, Metis has come up with decentralized Sequencer and the native Token economy to try to overtake in a corner, and Manta , ZKFair, Blast, etc. are all trying to use the power of market, operation and maintenance, and capital to counterattack.

In addition, Celestia, Altlayer, Espresso, etc. use modular thinking to continue to add new variables to the Layer 2 market. The current Layer 2 market can no longer use established advantages such as technical strength and capital background to lock in market position. Under the waves of market impact and competition, the final survivors must be those with balanced comprehensive strength in all aspects. Layer2 project. Within one year after the Cancun upgrade, market competition will intensify, and there may be four new Layer 2 kings born by then.

Note: I was lucky enough to receive the ECMP airdrop, which is an incentive to continue to output valuable content. Anyway, everyone should have more confidence in the Layer 2 market. and expectations.