The "solo flight" plan of this former L2 king has not only been criticized for backstabbing Ethereum, but has also raised multiple questions from the community regarding its post-transformation security costs, ecological liquidity, and the hype surrounding quantum narratives.

Written by: Nancy, PANews

On October 8, under the banner of anti-quantum security, the veteran L2 project Starknet proposed the idea of transitioning to L1, returning to the market discussion spotlight and leading to a double-digit rise in coin prices in a single day. However, behind the heat, Starknet's TVL has been cut in half compared to its peak, and the token price has dropped by more than 90% from its historical high.

More controversially, this former L2 king's "solo flight" plan has not only been accused of backstabbing Ethereum but has also sparked community concerns about its post-transformation security costs, ecological liquidity, and the hype surrounding quantum narratives.

Starknet Seeks Transition to L1, Coin Price Surge Cannot Hide Ecological Dilemma

Yesterday, StarkWare co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson proposed an idea: Facing security challenges in the post-quantum era, should Starknet transition from Ethereum L2 to an independent L1 public chain?

This idea quickly attracted market attention. Ben-Sasson believes that the rapid development of quantum computing and AI could pose new security threats to the existing cryptographic system, meaning the industry must enter fortress mode and prepare for the worst-case scenario in advance. To meet future security challenges, the network must meet multiple conditions, including employing the right cryptographic technology, possessing cryptographic agility, and becoming an L1 public chain.

Ben-Sasson believes that Starknet already possesses the ZK-STARKs technology foundation and cryptographic agility, and has formulated a post-quantum security migration roadmap. However, the problem is that as an Ethereum L2, Starknet's security still relies on the underlying Ethereum. If Ethereum fails to complete its anti-quantum upgrade on time, Starknet's migration process may also be constrained.

According to the current plan, Ethereum aims to achieve comprehensive anti-quantum capabilities at the L1 level by the end of 2029, while Bitcoin has yet to make a similar commitment. To gain more autonomous control over the network security upgrade process, Starknet is considering various options, including transitioning to L1. Ben-Sasson stated that Starknet expects to achieve quantum security upgrades as early as 2027.

Buoyed by this idea, STRK surged in the opposite direction amidst a general downturn in the crypto market. According to CoinGecko data, over the past 24 hours, STRK rose by 41.2%, but still dropped about 98.5% from its historical high.

Starknet was once recognized alongside Optimism, Arbitrum, and zkSync as the "four kings" of the L2 track, but as market conditions have changed and ecological growth has come under pressure, this star project has struggled to regain its former glory. Controversies surrounding airdrops, frequent CEO changes, and controversial statements have repeatedly dragged Starknet into public relations crises. Meanwhile, ecological liquidity has continuously come under pressure, and on-chain activity and revenue performance have struggled to support market expectations.

Data from DeFiLlama shows that as of October 9, Starknet's TVL was approximately $160 million. Although it has recovered from last year's low, it has still decreased by more than 50.6% compared to its historical peak. Meanwhile, revenue performance is similarly unpromising, with daily on-chain revenue mostly at just a few thousand dollars or even lower over the past two years, far from the hundreds of thousands of dollars per day during peak periods.

The pursuit of transformation by Starknet is not accidental. With fierce competition in the L2 track, once popular star projects are beginning to face dual tests of growth bottlenecks and business models, with projects like Blast and Abstract recently shutting down. The chill in the L2 sector is deepening, and the industry reshuffle is accelerating further. For projects unable to sustain innovation and build core competitiveness, elimination may just be a matter of time.

Community Criticizes for Destroying the Bridge After Crossing, Post-Quantum Security Plans Still Lacking

Starknet's idea to start anew has triggered criticism from the crypto community.

Once, Starknet successfully attracted substantial market attention with its Ethereum ZK-Rollup technology route and the narrative of inheriting Ethereum's security, gaining the favor of liquidity and ecological resources, even once reaching a valuation as high as $8 billion. Now, with L2 business in decline, Starknet has proposed the idea of "going solo," considering transforming into an independent L1 under the pretext that Ethereum's upgrade progress may constrain post-quantum security. This operation has also sparked community skepticism, accusing Starknet of destroying the bridge after crossing.

However, transitioning to an independent L1 is not without cost. The community questions that once detached from Ethereum's security system, Starknet will need to assume more responsibility for underlying security maintenance and upgrades, including establishing a reliable security mechanism and addressing potential attack risks. Moreover, Starknet will also face challenges in ecological construction and liquidity acquisition. Given that Starknet already faces growth pressure, whether the transformation can attract sufficient developers, users, and funds to support the long-term operation of an independent public chain remains uncertain.

In addition to the controversy surrounding the transition itself, Starknet is also accused of leveraging market concerns about cryptographic security for its own momentum.

Recently, the breakthrough progress of AI in the field of mathematical research has ignited concerns in the crypto industry regarding cryptographic security. OpenAI released research results containing 722 digital manuscripts that involved answers to hundreds of unsolved problems, shaking the academic community and making AI's acceleration in solving mathematical problems a focal point of industry attention.

On October 8, a warning article published by Ethereum Foundation core researcher Justin Drake further heightened the discussion's heat. He urged the crypto industry to enter "fortress mode" and reassess the risks that AI development may pose to the existing cryptographic system.

Drake believes that progress in AI regarding mathematical reasoning may expedite the process of cracking existing cryptographic algorithms. For the crypto industry, this means that potential security threats may not have to wait for the maturity of quantum computing to materialize. He specifically pointed out that the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) protecting Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets may face risks earlier than expected, and even the possibility of being compromised before quantum computers possess practical attack capabilities. According to his most pessimistic scenario, the relevant risk window may be measured in months rather than years.

To mitigate potential risks, Drake suggests establishing an orderly asset migration strategy, prioritizing moving large assets to new addresses where public keys have not yet been disclosed, and after transaction signing, further assessing how to reduce the risk of public key exposure for remaining assets. He also calls on institutions like Binance, Bitbank, Robinhood, Bitfinex, and Tether to enhance cold storage security.

In terms of technical routes, Justin Drake also mentioned that Ethereum's roadmap on strawmap[.]org comprehensively adopts hash-based cryptography and end-to-end formal verification to address quantum threats. Given the emergence of mathematical superintelligence, these timelines must be reassessed and expedited.

Ethereum founder Vitalik subsequently responded that he does not recommend users hastily migrate assets because of this, but that the industry should take seriously the cryptographic risks brought by AI accelerating mathematical research, not just concerning quantum-vulnerable algorithms but also algorithms that may be influenced by AI. He believes that the core new risks lie in ML-DSA, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), and lattice cryptography. If AI brings about a mathematical advancement equivalent to about 50 years in the next two years, the specific security of lattice cryptography may noticeably decline, and ECDSA may therefore be compromised earlier than expected. This is one of the crucial reasons why the Ethereum Lean roadmap has shifted towards pure hash signatures (such as WOTS, SPHINCS-) over the past year, reducing its dependence on lattice cryptography.

To some extent, Starknet's pursuit of transformation under the banner of potential post-quantum security risks indeed strikes at the current anxieties surrounding security in the crypto industry. However, as of now, Starknet has not proposed specific executable anti-quantum security plans, and even the transition idea has not formally entered the on-chain governance proposal stage.

Therefore, whether Starknet can deliver an anti-quantum security plan that stands up to scrutiny, and whether it can truly establish an independent security system and ecological advantages after transitioning, remains to be observed. Without a clear technical path and sustainable growth logic, relying solely on post-quantum security narratives is unlikely to regain market trust.