The Layer-2 scaling protocol Starknet is aiming to double the impact of the reduced costs for rollups following the latest hard fork upgrade of Ethereum, Dencun, which took place on March 13th. The Starknet Foundation announced that additional fee-saving initiatives in their protocol would be launched concurrently with the Dencun upgrade. The hard fork will be the most significant upgrade in Ethereum‘s protocol since its transition to proof-of-stake consensus in October 2022.
Dencun Update and Layer-2 Networks
Dencun includes the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-4844), which changes how Ethereum rollups store data on the mainnet. Several Layer-2 rollups process off-chain transactions and send a summary proof of these transactions to the Ethereum blockchain network.
EIP-4844 introduces a blob space instead of using call data for storage, creating a new way for rollups to add data to blocks more cheaply. Historically, using call data to store cryptographic proofs of off-chain bundled transactions was expensive because all Ethereum nodes had to process data that lived indefinitely on the chain.
Named after the researchers who proposed EIP-4844, proto-danksharding allows rollups to send and add data blobs to blocks. The data is inaccessible to the Ethereum Virtual Machine and is automatically deleted after a fixed period of 18 days. David Silverman, Vice President of Product at Polygon Labs, previously stated that the blob space is significantly cheaper for rollups and provides the same security guarantees.
Starknet Network Update
While ecosystem developers carry out governance and upgrade procedures to change rollup contracts, there may be delays in fee reductions by Layer-2s in the coming weeks. Starknet Foundation announced a set of special hard fork upgrades that will coincide with Dencun. Starknet version 0.13.1 will significantly reduce fees by transitioning from the expensive call data method to a more cost-effective blob transaction type for sending data to Ethereum.
Starknet is expected to significantly benefit the Layer-2 ecosystem as call data, which constitutes about 90% of the gas fees paid by Starknet for sending transactions to the Ethereum mainnet, will be reduced. Ilia Volokh, StarkWare product manager and blockchain researcher, stated that Starknet’s Shared Prover (SHARP) will transition from sending state differences as call data to using the blob space. State differences contain information about every updated contract storage and additional information about contract deployments.
Volokh expects to see accurate statistics reflecting the fee reduction within an hour after Dencun’s implementation. Meanwhile, Volokh mentioned that all benefits would be immediately passed on to users:
“A byte of data will be priced according to Ethereum’s blob prices.”
Starknet’s SHARP prover leverages recursive proof technology, which compiles previous proofs into groups called trains. A new hashing system introduced in early 2024 will increase the number of transactions trains can carry and enhance the protocol’s efficiency.
