Starknet community approves STRK for transaction fees

Although STRK has not officially launched, the Starknet community showed overwhelming support for an upgrade aiming to introduce the native crypto as a gas token.

Starknet saw 99.8% of its participating delegates vote to implement Alpha version 0.13.0 on its mainnet, as no member of the Starknet Governance Committee opposed the proposal. The update aims to enable a dual token system allowing Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) network users to settle gas fees in either Ether (ETH) or STRK. 

Following the landslide outcome, the L2 protocol will activate v.13 on Jan. 10. However, users will not immediately be able to pay for transactions using STRK since the native token remains unreleased. 

The dual fee structure is only one-half of Starkent’s proposed update. Alpha v.13 will also slash gas fees by up to 50% and optimize network performance through technological improvements. 

Starknet uses rollup solutions built on zero knowledge to scale Ethereum’s blockchain, offering cheaper fees and faster transactions. It currently costs less than $1 to send ETH and swap other ERC-20 tokens via STRK’s decentralized network.

To achieve this, the protocol bundles transactions on an off-chain layer before broadcasting the same on-chain actions on Ethereum’s main chain.

Launched in February 2022 by Israel-based blockchain firm StarkWare Industries, the Ethereum scaling network plans to distribute 1.8 billion STRK tokens in user rewards, with at least 50 million tokens designated for early adopters. 

There is speculation regarding a general community airdrop for network participants and users.