StarkWare weighs moving Starknet off Ethereum to a hash-based, quantum-resistant chain by 2027

Starknet, a zero-knowledge rollup that settles on Ethereum, is "actively considering" becoming an independent layer-1 (L1) blockchain. The goal is to be fully quantum-resistant by 2027, according to Unchained. Eli Ben-Sasson, chief executive of StarkWare, the company that built Starknet, said an independent chain would let Starknet run its own security upgrades instead of waiting for Ethereum. Bankless reports that Ethereum's roadmap targets core post-quantum infrastructure around 2029, and that StarkWare cites faster progress in artificial intelligence as a reason to move sooner. There is no formal proposal and no governance vote.

The technical argument is narrow. Starknet's proofs are STARKs (Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge). These rely on hash functions and are widely considered resistant to quantum attack. The settlement layer beneath them is different: Ethereum accounts and validators sign with elliptic-curve schemes, which a large enough quantum computer could break. An independent chain would replace Ethereum's security layer with a hash-based one. The cost is that Starknet would give up Ethereum's validator set and would need to recruit and decentralize a validator set of its own.

Markets moved before any governance step. A CoinGlass snapshot taken at 20:28 UTC on October 11 showed STRK at $0.1190, up 17.7% in 24 hours and 116.7% in seven days. L2Beat data show Starknet's total value secured (TVS) at $747.5 million, up 40.1% over seven days. Starknet was the only large rollup in the L2Beat list with a gain that size, while Base and Arbitrum One each fell about 3%. L2Beat still rates Starknet "Stage 1," the middle of its scale for how much a rollup depends on its operators.

Ethereum researchers are working on the same problem from inside the protocol. A draft standard posted on Ethereum Research, ERC-8403 (Ethereum Request for Comments 8403), sets common rules for adding and revoking keys under native account abstraction. Its author notes that today each account model defines those actions differently, so wallets must support all of them. The draft represents an account as a single hash and allows post-quantum keys, which would let users switch to quantum-safe signatures without leaving Ethereum. The two efforts reflect a choice every rollup now faces: wait for the base layer's timeline, or leave to set its own.