Andy's Alpha #9 - StarkNet CC Early Adopter Recap
Early StarkNet opportunities I heard of, builders delivering alpha, timely releases coming soon, and overall reflections!
StarkNetCC was a total vibe. It feels like early Ethereum days. Truly.
There is a different programming language that StarkNet is built in called Cairo which has some big differences from solidity. The StarkNet builders are extremely passionate about the innovations that are able to be built thanks Cairo. Amongst other things, I had the chance to listen to Vitalik talk about zkTechnology with some of the best builders from StarkWare. We were also celebrating the recent Quantum leap upgrade, which takes StarkNets TPS to a very competitive figure amongst other L2 solutions.
This issue has tons of great info that I took notes of at the conference. Thank you for being here. Let’s dive right in!
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Today’s Inspiration
"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." —Jim Rohn, entrepreneur.
Before We Get To Approved Alpha, How About Some veMAV Wars Alpha?
SpiralDAO has launched their locker for $veMAV tokens with some very very good yields. I’m very bullish on Maverick Protocol and I think the MAV wars will be one of the most important bribing/locking/governance protocol wars we’ve seen yet 👀 You can find more info on SpiralDAOs locker here.
Approved Alpha .
I want to share with you the best information that I discovered from StarkNetCC.
What I’ll do is drop a photo with relevant info that you’d wanna know. Ready? Leggo👇
Incredibly motivating interview featuring EliBenSasson!
The technological advancements achieved by the StarkWareLtd team are propelling Eli's grand vision of "proof of humanity" to new horizons. Eli and the team behind StarkWare (who pioneered STARKs) have raised $100M+ and are trying to build a remarkably large ecosystem of builders. When I heard what Eli’s vision was, I thought of altruism and a desire to make this ecosystem big.
Enjoying the fantastic time at @StarknetCC in Paris! It's truly remarkable to witness the remarkable growth of the event compared to last year, with teams passionately engrossed in their projects.
Impressed by the event's growth since last year, and the teams fully immersed in their building efforts. There's an undeniable aura in the air, guys. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's definitely worth paying close attention to. There have been multiple people I spoke to about this aura and they all agree. When I was at the conference last year in 2022, even amidst the crazy bear market shenanigans, it was an amazing vibe of builders and people who are trying to push forward the zk initiative. We will be covering this ecosystem in detail from an education perspective coming soon.
Feeling super bullish on Rohit and JediSwap with some awesome updates coming your way!
Rohit is now a part of the onboarding committee for StarkNet foundation (which is trying to decentralize). They are tackling onboarding devs, builders, and users. We will help them with organic content soon and push that initiative forward. Waiting for the Connext <> StarkNet bridge with Connext’s chain abstraction toolkit. Definitely read more about that here.
Vitalik Buterin on stage sharing his invaluable insights on the Kakarot panel.
This panel was exceptional, and I have the highlights in the tweet linked below, but some of the things I learned: First there are 4 different types of zkRollups (explained in the thread below). Second, Kakarot is bringing Cairo to EVM compatibility with their zkEVM launching on mainnet in early 2024. Also, StarkNet has taken an approach to their tech upgrades that preaches decentralization as the teams which helped with the Quantum Leap Upgrade were not necessarily part of the StarkWare dev team. In fact, most of them were not.
Covering StarknetCC with the incredible 0xNurstar!
🤝 We have a joint commitment to advance the education initiative for the wider Starknet community. Nurstar is a must follow! His content about StarkNet, weekly and daily recaps, spaces and other podcast type content is extremely helpful for navigating the StarkNet ecosystem and he is always ahead of the curve. Definitely some opportunities come from paying attention to where he is 👀
The great StarkNetCC events and panel lineup!
I think the biggest part of this image is the absolute number of panels and talks this year which has increased exponentially since last year. This was a tiny event in 2022. 2023 was bigger. 2024 will probably be the year that it becomes massive as many of the projects will launch tokens (hint: 🪂 ) and there will be a fully-functional DeFi ecosystem.
So many friends and familiar faces here…and which projects to pay attention to below 👇
Braavos is the best wallet on StarkNet IMO. zkLend and JediSwap are dominating the lending and DEX space on StarkNet (and I expect them to continue, and also I expect tokens from both of them). ZKX is going to lead the derivatives race, also expecting a token. AVNU had a very, very interesting keynote talk about how Cairo enables them to take 7 transactions (what it requires on Uniswap on Ethereum) and put it into ONE signature to conduct a DEX swap. Was pretty mindblowing to see the power of Cairo in this. The other sponsors on this are definitely worth paying attention to as well, Nostra & StarkNet.ID will probably do a 🪂 in the future as well. Definitely grab your StarkNet ID!
I met up with Gal, head of product at StarkWare!
Gal explained to me what they are focused on now: Onboarding devs, users, and builders and making the UX the best possible with the current tech. He also told me about StarkNet Summit at the end of August in San Fran. If you’re out in San Fran or western USA and can make the trip, I assure you it’ll be worth it!
Literally wearing many hats during StarkNetCC with the zkLend girls.
zkLend had some really good marketing. We’ve done podcasts and demo videos on The Rollup with Brian from zkLend and I think this is a project to pay attention to!
Aris from Hashstack, an undercollateralized lending protocol undergoing a raise and an upcoming launch!
Another protocol which is looking to raise and 🪂 for early adopters. Their undercollateralized lending model is very appealing and well thought out. Excited to see it in action as they gear up for the upcoming launch.
That is all folks, I hope you enjoyed this StarkNet CC recap. To the moon & beyond!