Reported by The Block, blockchain developer StarkWare has announced plans to build a Bitcoin scaling solution in a significant expansion pivot.
StarkWare, which was valued at $8 billion in its last investment round, is the core contributor to Ethereum Layer 2 Starknet. With the new Bitcoin OP_CAT proposal currently being debated in the community, the firm says it's the right time to bring its zero-knowledge scaling technology to Bitcoin.
“Starknet will become the first network to settle simultaneously on Bitcoin and Ethereum, and scale Bitcoin to many thousands of transactions per second. This will happen within six months after the potential Bitcoin upgrade, OP_CAT,” StarkWare CEO and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson said in a statement shared with The Block.
No extra chain is being created — the plan uses the same Starknet network with the same governance and tokenomics, supporting Bitcoin scaling without requiring a fork, the team clarified. Every dApp could choose where it wants to settle — either or both, Ben-Sasson told The Block.
“StarkWare is often mistaken for being an Ethereum maxi, though actually we are scaling maxis,” Ben-Sasson added. “We’re mass-use maxis. We’re STARK maxis, which means we believe our technology is best suited to scale all blockchains safely and efficiently. At StarkWare, we now have the expertise, experience and team to simultaneously scale both Ethereum and Bitcoin.”
StarkWare also announced the introduction of a $1 million application-based fund for Bitcoin researchers interested in contributing to its plans. Applications will open “within weeks,” Ben-Sasson said, with funds “earmarked for new discoveries which demonstrate risks associated with OP_CAT, or open source and useful proofs of concept.”