Starknet Considers Transitioning to Standalone L1 Network to Accelerate Post-Quantum Security

The broader cryptocurrency industry is facing a monumental question: Can the most critical blockchain projects effectively fortify themselves ahead of the arrival of Q-Day, or major artificial intelligence breakthroughs in mathematics? That grand question is being debated more intensely than ever following recent "bunker mode" comments from Ethereum researcher Justin Drake.

Only time will tell whether those remarks underestimated or overestimated the timeline regarding imminent mathematical breakthroughs. But in any case, both quantum computing and advanced AI threats are very real. They are not distant, abstract dangers, and various crypto projects are taking these specters with differing levels of urgency.

Among those proactive projects is Starknet, whose builders made significant waves when they announced they were considering transitioning the chain from an Ethereum Layer 2 network to a standalone Layer 1 network.

The underlying motivation for this potential shift is to harden the network against quantum and artificial intelligence threats more quickly than the chain can achieve while remaining directly tethered to Ethereum as a traditional rollup.

As some industry observers may recall, StarkWare’s post-quantum roadmap released on June 30th did not float the idea of becoming an L1. However, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson has since stressed that the concept has evolved rapidly due to a growing concern that traditional cryptography might be broken much sooner than the broader crypto industry currently expects.

The core logic driving this pivot is that as an independent Layer 1 network, Starknet could set the pace of its own security upgrades rather than being forced to follow Ethereum’s slower timeline. This independent track would put the network on course for what its developers bill as the first fully quantum-resistant network, with a targeted completion date of 2027.

The question naturally arises: Why can Starknet not achieve this ambitious goal while remaining an L2 rollup?

The June roadmap clearly illustrates the structural bottleneck. It splits Starknet’s quantum migration process into three distinct phases. The first two phases—which include swapping the Pedersen hashing algorithm for the quantum-resistant BLAKE2, adding post-quantum digital signatures like Falcon-512, and migrating legacy smart contracts—are entirely within Starknet’s control to execute.

However, the third phase is outside its immediate control, as it covers two vital infrastructural pieces that Starknet currently borrows directly from Ethereum.

Because of this structural dependency, it could be a few years before Ethereum finishes its own comprehensive post-quantum evolutions. That delay would effectively put key pieces of Starknet’s defensive roadmap on ice for at least that duration.

This is a fundamental challenge that other Layer 2 projects will undoubtedly have to contend with as well. Since a rollup inherently inherits the Layer 1 network’s underlying cryptography alongside its overall security, its effective quantum timeline is dictated by whichever system moves slower—its own internal upgrade cycle or that of the base L1.

Simply put, Starknet anticipates running up against this structural wall because its internal development teams are capable of executing their side of the cryptographic work much at a much faster cadence. Interestingly, some of Ethereum’s own planned quantum upgrades will ultimately make Ethereum look more structurally similar to Starknet.

For instance, Ethereum is actively pursuing Ethereum Improvement Proposal 8141, which, among other things, would allow individual accounts to adopt quantum-safe digital signatures on their own independent timelines rather than waiting for a complex, network-wide migration.

Starknet, meanwhile, has featured native account abstraction—meaning every account is inherently a programmable smart contract—for years. This native architecture is the precise reason why development groups like S2morrow were already able to build a post-quantum Starknet account utilizing Falcon-512 signatures without requiring any underlying protocol changes.

Moreover, Ethereum plans to eventually swap its BLS validator signatures for leanXMSS, a hash-based cryptographic scheme, and to compress the bulkier results using zero-knowledge proofs via leanVM. Ethereum also lists STARK-based polynomial commitments among the leading candidates to replace KZG commitments. STARKs are hash-based by design and literally put the "Stark" in Starknet.

In parallel, over the past couple of years, Starknet has steadily assembled much of the complex machinery it would need to operate as an independent Layer 1, including STRK token staking, multiple decentralized sequencers, and related infrastructure. These components were originally engineered to position Starknet as a more efficient, scalable, and decentralized extension of Ethereum, but they significantly reduce the technical hurdles of the chain’s potential L1 transition question.

Based on current architectural assessments, the primary missing pieces for an independent Starknet L1 include data availability—referring to the dedicated environment where transaction data gets published so that any participant can independently rebuild the chain—final transaction settlement, and a comprehensive reworking of the official cross-chain bridge as needed.

Speaking of bridging, consider how a StarkGate withdrawal functions today: funds are only released after Ethereum has mathematically verified the zero-knowledge proof for the withdrawal’s block and the matching state update has successfully landed on the Ethereum mainnet. In other words, Ethereum checks Starknet’s math, ensuring that Starknet’s operators cannot forge the underlying state that bridged funds depend upon.

A standalone Layer 1 Starknet could land anywhere on that operational spectrum, however. It might choose to keep posting STARK proofs back to Ethereum to back a trust-minimized bridge, or it might decide to cut the cord entirely and operate on an entirely independent consensus model. Because those represent vastly different trust models, this remains the open strategic question that industry observers are watching most closely.

It is also worth remembering that Starknet has long pitched itself as a versatile scaling layer that could one day settle transactions on both Bitcoin and Ethereum. While that vision is distinct from simply leaving Ethereum behind entirely, a proof-connected Starknet Layer 1 that bridges assets to both networks would arguably rhyme with that original multi-chain vision rather than cleanly break from it.

For now, no official transition process has formally kicked off, but it is increasingly clear that an independent Layer 1 architecture is viewed as the primary path forward for Starknet. Whatever transpires, the chain’s leadership and community want to move sooner rather than later, driven by the sobering realization that there may not be a viable later for crypto projects that fail to make these crucial technological adjustments in time.