Starknet Puts a Post-Quantum Layer 1 to a Seven-Day Research Vote

Starknet opened a seven-day poll on Thursday asking token holders whether the network should research leaving Ethereum's Layer 2 model and running as a chain of its own. The case put to them is cryptographic. Starknet's proofs are hash-based and already resistant to quantum attack, but its bridge to Ethereum and its data availability arrangements follow Ethereum's upgrade schedule, which Starknet does not control. The poll is non-binding and settles nothing beyond whether the research happens. It closes on 22 October.

What a yes buys

A yes authorises study and further proposals. The text is explicit that backing the research "does not constitute approval of a transition to an L1," and any move would need a separate governance process. A no keeps the post-quantum work inside the existing Layer 2 design. The ballot has three options: support, oppose, neutral. Unchained reports that only STRK stakers and delegators may vote and that no quorum applies, and no other outlet checked mentions either condition.

In every outcome STRK stays the network token, with no replacement planned, and the bridges from Ethereum into Starknet stay open. Accounts can take on post-quantum signatures without a protocol upgrade, which is the piece StarkWare says is already within reach. No design for an independent chain has been published and no migration date exists.

"Becoming an L1 is a big deal. So is post-quantum security. We want to hear what the community thinks," Eli Ben-Sasson wrote on X.

The count moved while it was being read

Two tallies are on the record from Thursday afternoon and they are not the same count. The Block, writing at 14:25 UTC, put 177.6 million STRK cast with 99.91% in favour. Unchained, about fifteen minutes later, reported 293 votes and roughly 179.8 million in voting power, 99.9% of it behind yes. Both are readings of a poll that was still open, taken minutes apart, so neither supersedes the other. Turnout as a share of eligible stake is absent from every account checked.

Who is making the argument

The sources split on that. The Block attributes the security case to StarkWare and to Ben-Sasson, its chief executive, who floated the idea on 8 October. Unchained places that first mention at a Token2049 talk the same day and attributes the forum rationale to Henri of the Starknet Foundation; neither account mentions the other party. StarkWare's own line, as The Block has it, is that "the parts of Starknet under Starknet's control can be quantum-resistant soon". The team has shown work on that front before, saying in August that a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction had been mined on mainnet.

The 2027 target and what sits behind it

Starknet has named 2027 as its target for full quantum resistance, a date Unchained and The Currency Analytics both carry. The Currency Analytics alone describes a three-phase plan set out in June, covering signature upgrades, contract migration and the Ethereum-dependent infrastructure, and it alone puts Ethereum's post-quantum team at a March start with initial protections aimed at 2029. We could not corroborate either claim. What is on the Ethereum side in public is slower-moving work of the kind drafted in August, which would let validator deposits carry 8,192-byte keys.

The poll shuts at 09:32 UTC on 22 October, by Unchained's reckoning, and the result goes back to the forum shortly after. What a yes leads to is the open question. There is no consensus design and no published cost for moving a Layer 2's state and bridges onto a chain of its own, and nobody has said what becomes of the Ethereum bridge's security assumptions if Starknet stops settling there.