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Layer-2 Blockchain Starknet's ‘Quantum Leap’ Upgrade Goes Live, for Speedier Transactions

The upgrade for Starknet, a layer-2 blockchain or "rollup" to the Ethereum blockchain, went live following a community vote that overwhelmingly agreed to deploy it to mainnet.

StarkWare co-founders President Eli Ben-Sasson and CEO Uri Kolodny. (StarkWare)
StarkWare co-founders President Eli Ben-Sasson and CEO Uri Kolodny. (StarkWare)

Starknet, a layer 2 to the Ethereum blockchain, deployed its "Quantum Leap" upgrade early on Wednesday, designed to increase the number of transactions per second (TPS) and reduce the confirmation times for the blockchain.

Quantum Leap was deployed on its Goerli testnet last week, followed by a community vote in which 97.91% of voters agreeed to push forward to mainnet.

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According to the StarkWare team, the company behind the Starknet blockchain, TPS peaked several times at 90 during testing, though was consistently at 37 TPS. StarkWare previously had told CoinDesk that TPS following Quantum Leap would reach into the triple digits.

Starkware CEO Uri Kolodny acknowledged the undershoot in a press release sent to CoinDesk: “We said this upgrade would deliver potential TPS of hundreds within Q3, and only hoped from the stress test to check we’re on target. A few dozen TPS at this early point would have left us excited – but we got more than we bargained for.”

In addition, the time-to-inclusion, which is the time needed to confirm and report a transaction, was at about 10 seconds, higher than anticipated.

“The numbers speak for themselves. They’re an invitation for every dev, wherever they are, to put the network to the test,” Kolodny said.

According to the project’s roadmap, Starknet has other upgrades planned for later in the year, which aims to make the blockchain more scalable by reducing transaction fees and shortening block intervals.

Read more: Starknet Plans ‘Quantum Leap’ Upgrade Next Week After Testnet Version Deployed

Margaux Nijkerk

Margaux Nijkerk reports on the Ethereum protocol and L2s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and Emory universities, she has a masters in International Affairs & Economics. She holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Margaux Nijkerk