Starknet Becomes First Rollup To Deploy Native Staking

Starknet has commenced the roll out of native STRK staking.

On Nov. 26, Starknet launched Phase 1 of its native staking feature, allowing users holding at least 20,000 STRK tokens ($11,300) to stake their assets.

StarkWare, the development team behind Starknet, noted that users holding less than 20,000 STRK can also participate in staking by delegating their tokens.

The project claims to be the first Ethereum rollup to activate native staking.

“This is the first time that a rollup has put its tokens where its mouth is — inviting and incentivizing regular people to secure the network,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, the CEO of StakWare. “We are paving the way for enabling members of the Starknet community to sequence and validate Starknet blocks, which is where the true magic of decentralization takes effect.”

StarkWare said validators will increasingly take on new responsibilities as staking functionality is deployed in phases. The rollout will culminate in validators becoming “fully responsible for performing the sequencing and proving activities needed to fully secure the network.”

“The introduction of this first stage of staking shows a commitment to the development of a fully decentralized network,” added James Strudwick, the executive director of the Starknet Foundation.

The move follows Starknet community governance approving the introduction of staking in September. Staking rewards are issued as newly minted STRK tokens, with rewards adjusting dynamically based on participation. The feature was trialed on testnet throughout October.

The project said that neither StarkWare of the Starknet Foundation will participate in staking during Phase 1. Locked tokens allocated to early investors cannot be mobilized for staking

Validators and delegators are subject to a 21-day lockup period when unstaking.

The introduction of staking serves to incentivize users to hold STRK, with the token suffering heavy drawdowns since Starknet’s airdrop in February.

The price of STRK is down 87.5% since tagging an all-time high of $4.41 on Feb. 20, with the token last changing hands for $0.565 after dipping 8.8% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

STRK is the 94th-largest cryptocurrency with a $1.19 billion market cap, according to The Defiant’s crypto price feeds.