Starknet’s STRK token has rallied by more than 80% over the past seven days, making it the best performing altcoin among the top 100 by market cap. The token climbed to $0.126 on Sunday, its highest level since December last year. The rally ignited right after the network said on October 8 that it is “actively considering becoming an L1,” a step it pitched as the route towards becoming the first fully quantum-resistant network by 2027.
Starknet Says It Can Only Be as Safe as Ethereum
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson asked his followers whether going L1 for “post-quantum agility” was a good idea or a bad one. His reasoning is based on how roll ops operate. As a layer 2 on Ethereum, Starknet borrows its security from Ethereum and therefore can only be as quantum-safe as the chain underneath it.
He highlighted that Ethereum had to move “real fast,” and that if it doesn’t, the option to become an L1 can be on the cards. Running its own chain would allow Starknet to ship security updates on its own clock. Its proofs already rely on hash functions, which are considered quantum- resistant and a roadmap which was published on June 30 covers replacing the remaining elliptic-curve pieces.
Ben-Sasson Borrowed an Ethereum Researcher’s Warning
The day before this announcement, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake asked the blockchain and crypto industry to “calmly begin planning for ‘bunker mode.’” His concern is that AI-driven math could potentially break ECDSA, the signature scheme that secures Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets, before quantum computers ever get there. He says that in the worst case scenario, this happens in months rather than years. His calls for “bunker mode” is to move funds to new addresses where the public keys have never been exposed while at the same time cautioning against rushing to do this.
The threat was echoed the next day with Ben-Sasson highlighting that quantum-computing and fast-moving AI together call for bunker mode.
Other Ethereum L2s Are Shutting Down Instead
The proposal comes during a rough stretch for rollups. Blast said on Oct. 2 it would wind down because running the chain cost more than it earned, and gave users until Oct. 26 to withdraw to mainnet. Abstract, the chain tied to Pudgy Penguins, announced its own shutdown in early October.
Starknet is in a different spot, with roughly $168 million in total value locked. Its version of leaving Ethereum reads more like graduation than closure, and STRK buyers appear to be pricing it that way.
No Vote Has Been Scheduled Yet
For all the price action, the L1 move is still just an idea. There’s no formal proposal and no governance vote. StarkWare’s own roadmap says any protocol-level change to Starknet needs approval through its governance process, and neither the Oct. 8 post nor Ben-Sasson’s thread gave a timeline for a decision.
Going independent would also leave Starknet fully responsible for its own security, a much heavier load than leaning on the second-largest blockchain. The token has already slipped back from its 24-hour high, and for now, the market is trading on intent and any governance proposal would give traders something firmer to price.
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