The primary development company of the layer-2 blockchain Starknet, StarkWare, revealed plans on Wednesday for its own zero-knowledge rollup that is compatible with the current Ethereum infrastructure. This configuration is referred to as a zkEVM. The Starknet Stack, a suite of software tools that facilitate developers in creating their own tailored application-specific chains, will make the zkEVM, known as Kakarot, accessible. It is now undergoing testing.
Since Cairo is the programming language used by Starknet, it already has its own zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM).The Starknet blockchain will now be more approachable to a wider range of project builders thanks to the zkEVM, which allows developers to write code in Solidity, the most popular programming language for Ethereum smart contracts. Press release obtained by CoinDesk states that Kakarot is presently in a “public whitelist” phase. The Kakarot zkEVM will thus only be accessible to a limited group of developers in order to test out any new protocol modifications prior to the network’s launch.
“This is a great sign of Starknet’s growth and maturity,” said the CEO of StarkWare, Eli Ben-Sasson, in a statement to CoinDesk. “Starknet dared to be different, and use the powerful Cairo language, instead of Solidity. At the same time, some developers want the zkEVM approach, and for that reason, this is excellent news for the network.”
The news coincides with StarkWare’s recent statement that it will launch “Stwo,” a new cryptographic prover.