Starknet transaction fees fall below Arbitrum

Starknet transaction fees reached $0.12 this month. This figure beats the $0.18 average fee on Arbitrum. The v0.13.0 upgrade facilitates fee payments in STRK alongside ETH. This version also cut Cairo step costs by 50% and reduced L1 data availability costs by 10%. For ERC-20 transfers, the data availability fee reduction reaches 25%. The sequencer uses Pragma or Switchboard oracles to set the STRK/gas rate. This version lays the groundwork for v3 transactions, which allow users to pay in STRK for L1 gas consumption. The reduction in costs stems from increasing block size and better batching of storage updates. This upgrade provides the basis for features like a fee market based on EIP-1559 and Volition mode, which allows users to opt out of expensive L1 data availability. This version also includes performance improvements for the sequencer.

Paymaster mechanics and game UX

Native account abstraction allows for the Paymaster implementation. The AVNU Paymaster helps developers like Unstoppable Games implement fee abstraction with their native token, SWEAT. This setup allows users to mint NFTs or trade without holding ETH or STRK in their wallets. The developers of Influence use this to manage a space strategy MMO that features a quarter million asteroids orbiting independently. This game recently wrapped its pre-release phase and moves toward the launch of Exploitation. This game requires constant transactions to process real time orbiting, which makes gas fees a significant issue for players. The ERC-4337 standard allows a third party to sponsor user operations. Argent and Braavos collaborated with AVNU on SNIP-9 to support native meta transactions. This SNIP-9 allows a user to sign a payload that a third party executes on their behalf. The PaymasterERC20 contract uses a pre-charge and refund model to cover costs. The PaymasterERC20Guarantor contract lets a third party cover the maximum gas cost upfront by pre-funding the amount before the user repays from their claimed tokens after they successfully claim an airdrop or mint an NFT. Developers must adjust the paymasterVerificationGasLimit and paymasterPostOpGasLimit to avoid out-of-gas errors. Paymasters also require sufficient ETH balance to cover gas costs. The Paymaster requires the developer to manage the contract balance carefully. For token-based sponsorship, the PaymasterERC20 allows users to pay fees using ERC-20 tokens. Developers use Chainlink price feeds to determine the token-to-ETH exchange rate dynamically. This removes the need to load a wallet with specific local currency before a user can transact. You should know that this abstraction makes the blockchain interaction push to the background.

Network comparisons

Arbitrum maintains a higher transaction throughput than Starknet. While Arbitrum processes 62 transactions per second, Starknet handles 19. Arbitrum also holds $13.8B in total value locked compared to $1.5B for Starknet. The Starknet sequencer uses Rust to improve performance, replacing the old Python implementation. This upgrade aims to increase throughput by 20x or more. The new sequencer includes a Rust-based Blockifier, Cairo Virtual Machine, and Papyrus local state management system. The original Python sequencer was an adaptation of the infrastructure used for StarkEx. The new Rust-based version targets the requirements of a decentralized and performant network. The transition to Rust removes the drag of interpreted code and dynamic types. The sequencer arranges a bunch of transactions in the correct order. The prover, a program developed by StarkWare, checks each transaction to ensure it is valid. The Ethereum L1 verifier, a smart contract, sets the prover a series of mathematical challenges to demonstrate that it has followed the correct steps for each transaction. Why does Starknet still struggle with such low throughput compared to its competitors? The low liquidity on Starknet makes it harder to use for heavy DeFi activity.