Starkware commits to open supply its ‘magic wand’ Starknet Prover

by Jeremy

Ethereum layer 2 scaling resolution StarkWare introduced plans to open supply its proprietary Starknet Prover underneath the Apache 2.0 license, which has processed 327 million transactions and minted 95 million nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to this point. 

The prover is the essential engine Starkware makes use of to roll up a whole lot of hundreds of transactions and compress them right into a tiny cryptographic proof written on the Ethereum blockchain.

“We consider the Prover because the magic wand of Stark know-how. It wondrously generates the proofs that enable unimaginable scaling,” stated Eli Ben-Sasson, president and co-founder of Starkware.

Eli Ben-Sasson presenting on the Starkware periods 2023. Supply: Cointelegraph

Starkware has confronted criticism from the crypto neighborhood and competing options equivalent to ZK Sync and Polygon for holding onto the IP behind its tech, which contradicts blockchain’s open supply and interoperable ethics.

Making the prover open supply underneath the Apache 2.0 license will allow every other mission or community — and even video games or database builders — to utilize the know-how, edit the code and customise it. The tech was launched in 2020 and is already being utilized by ImmutableX, Sorare and dYdX.

A sneak peek of the Starkware periods 2023. Supply: Cointelegraph

Avihu Levy, Starkware’s head of product, was reluctant to decide to a timeframe for open-sourcing the prover however stated it will happen after the token launch and decentralization of Starknet itself. He agreed, nevertheless, that it will be doable this 12 months.

“We wish to transfer ahead with a decentralized, permissionless community and that implies that you might want to have this crucial part on the market,” he revealed chatting with Cointelegraph.

Levy stated the choice to open supply the prover confirmed Starkware was more and more assured about its know-how and stated it will additionally allow initiatives to be extra assured about utilizing it as an important a part of their protocols.

“In StarkEx, it’s generally thought-about vendor lock-up or lock-in. So the dedication wasn’t only a enterprise dedication it was a know-how dedication to StarkEx,” he defined.

“It is a robust sign that you’ll have the whole lot you might want to run it your self unbiased of Starkware.”

Starkware has already open-sourced its programming language and EVM competitor Cairo 1.0, Papyrus Full node and is within the means of open-sourcing its new sequencer.

Associated: StarkNet overhauls Cairo programming language to drive developer adoption

Ben-Sasson launched the Starkware Classes convention in Tel Aviv on Sunday, which organizers stated was the biggest layer 2 convention held thus far.

“It is a landmark second for scaling Ethereum,” he instructed about 500 builders and visitors. “It can put Stark know-how in its rightful place, as a public good which can be used to profit everybody.”