Starknet votes to explore single-player as post-quantum L1

The Starknet community voted to investigate whether the Ethereum L2 should split into its own post-quantum L1, as 93.52% of votes supported the idea in a non-binding snap poll that farm on Thursday (October 22).

The result greenlights research, not a migration, and real change would still require another community vote.

• The vote: The week survey attracted 3,236 votes representing ~489 million STRK in voting power, with 4.57% voting no and 1.91% voting neutral. It opened on October 15, a week after the idea for L1 first surfaced, and StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson. called the result “a clear YES”.

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• The rationale: Starknet said it aims to be fully post-quantum by 2027, two years ahead of Ethereum’s 2029 goal, but can’t get there as L2 while it relies on Ethereum for its bridge and data availability. Or like StarkWare put it on“we can’t count on Ethereum to act fast enough to keep us safe.” Ben-Sasson too stakes the arrival of quantum at “2 years”, arguing that AI accelerates progress in hardware, error correction and efficient algorithms in qubits.

• What is fixed: A joint StarkWare and Starknet Foundation working group is now leading the research, and Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph it hopes to release a draft white paper for review in November. The Foundation also said STRK remains the network token, with no new tokens, and bridges from Ethereum will remain open. There is no timetable yet for L1.

• What is at stake: Starknet is a ZK Stage 1 rollup on L2BEAT securing ~$390M, with ~$279M canonically bridged from Ethereum. Becoming independent would likely mean that these assets would rely on Starknet’s own consensus rather than Ethereum’s, a trade-off that research will need to address. Meanwhile, STRK is trading near $0.052, up about 34% over the past month but down about 29% this week, according to CoinMarketCap.