In this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with Eli Ben-Sasson of Starkware. If you listened to my last episode with Su where we talked about the scaling approaches of different L1s blockchains compared to Ethereum, I argued that L1 blockchains do not scale and that the only way to create true scalability is to perform all of the computation off-chain and only post the results of that computation on-chain. STARKs are a technology that allows huge amounts of computation to be compressed into succinct proofs that anyone can easily verify.

Our goal for this episode was to create the most approachable and comprehensive audio resource on how STARKs work and how they will scale blockchains in the future. We start by explaining inclusive accountability and the true meaning of scalability. Then we dive into STARKs, how proof systems work in general, and where they fit into the context of unbundling blockchains. Next, we use DYDX as a comprehensive case study to learn about the StarkEx system, before diving into StarkNet and its tradeoffs to StarkEx. Finally, we talk about StarkWare’s programming language Cairo and how the different costs of proving, verifying, and storage are going to scale into the future. If you’re a developer, you should also gain a very good idea of the tradeoffs between building on a regular L1 blockchain, the general-purpose StarkNet blockchain, and a StarkEx application-specific chain.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
2:03 Eli’s backstory
5:27 What is computational integrity?
14:22 What are STARKs and how do they work?
29:03 How can validity proofs scale blockchains?
34:13 Looking at DYDX + StarkEx as a case study
56:20 What are the differences between StarkNet and StarkEx?
1:02:46 Cairo
1:13:52 What are the different costs for the end-user?

Listen to conversations between Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, and Hasu, an experienced crypto researcher and writer. Together with occasional guests, we explore the transformative nature of trust-minimized currency and financial services.

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