Podcast

STRK’s L1 Bet: Eli Ben-Sasson on Starknet’s Exit Plan

Starknet says it is “actively considering becoming an L1” — leaving Ethereum to become what it calls the first fully quantum-resistant network, with 2027 as the target. StarkWare co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson joins Camila Russo to explain the plan. The announcement came as a post on X on Oct. 8, with no governance proposal attached. STRK ran from $0.05 to $0.12 in five days and has since given back most of it. In the same week, StarkWare shipped Shadow Accounts, a privacy primitive that gives users a separate address per app, and launched OffMarket, a service for trading on Polymarket without linking positions to a public wallet. We get into: — What becoming an L1 actually means for Starknet, and what replaces Ethereum’s settlement guarantees — Who approves the move, and when a proposal goes to governance — Why Ben-Sasson thinks the quantum threat is “much closer than we think” — Where he lands in the “bunker mode” fight between Justin Drake, Vitalik Buterin and Yehuda Lindell — Why StarkWare is demoing ML-DSA signatures when Buterin named lattices as the next risk — Shadow Accounts, OffMarket, and building privacy on a counterparty that can switch you off — Starknet’s revenue, emissions, and whether an L1 changes the economics Guest: Eli Ben Sasson