A separate machine, not another EVM clone
Starknet is a validity rollup with its own language and its own virtual machine, which buys real capability at a real cost. It suits teams whose product needs proving and who can afford a different toolchain.
STRK right now.
Pulled live every time this page loads. We do not hardcode market figures, because a stale number on an agency site is worse than no number at all.
What Starknet is actually for.
Starknet is a layer two on Ethereum that proves its execution with validity proofs rather than relying on a challenge period. What separates it from most rollups is that it did not copy the Ethereum virtual machine. Contracts are written in Cairo, a language built for provable computation, running on a machine designed for the same purpose. That decision is the whole identity of the chain, and everything good and bad about building here follows directly from it.
The most distinctive practical feature is that accounts are contracts at the protocol level. Every account can carry its own rules about signing, recovery, session keys and who pays fees, without an add on standard bolted onto a chain that assumed something else. That makes onboarding and permission patterns possible that are awkward elsewhere. Beyond that, usage is the familiar mix of DeFi, some gaming and a set of applications that specifically wanted provable computation rather than cheap block space.
The community is technical and self selecting. People who chose to learn Cairo did so knowing the pool of jobs and libraries is smaller, and the culture reflects that seriousness. Compared with the EVM layer twos there is far less mercenary liquidity and far more attention on engineering. Compared with other proving systems it has been at this longer. What you will not find is a large casual audience waiting for something to trade, so a launch here needs a reason beyond scaling.
What the STRK token actually does.
The mechanics matter to you because the network token is the thing your own token competes with for the same attention and the same balance sheet.
Fee payment
STRK can be used to pay transaction fees on the network, which is unusual for a rollup where the parent chain asset is often the only option available to users.
Staking
The network has a staking design where the token is committed to support consensus and proving related roles, with rewards accruing to the participants who take that on.
Governance
Holders vote on protocol changes and upgrades, and governance has been used for real parameter decisions here rather than existing as decoration on a website.
Ecosystem incentives
Grant and incentive programs are denominated in STRK, and for most new projects this is the token's most direct practical relevance to their own launch.
STRK was distributed with allocations across contributors, investors, the foundation and a large ecosystem and community share, with insider portions vesting over a long period. The supply arriving on that schedule is public knowledge and the market treats it accordingly. Grant and provision programs have moved a meaningful share into the hands of users and builders. That matters for a project launching here because it sets the local supply of incentive tokens your own rewards are being compared against.
Fees are paid in a token that is also a governance and staking asset, which is a cleaner value story than rollups where the token does nothing at the protocol level. It does not remove the harder problem, which is that liquidity on any non EVM layer two is thinner and slower to arrive than on the Ethereum aligned alternatives. Plan your listing and market structure for that reality. Depth on this chain has to be built deliberately rather than assumed.
Who you are actually launching to.
The single most useful question about any chain, and the one most founders answer last.
Serious engineers
Developers who chose Cairo deliberately and stay across projects. Small in number, high in influence, and unimpressed by marketing that misstates how the technology works.
Proving and privacy interested builders
Teams whose products need verifiable computation rather than only cheaper transactions, including on chain games, identity systems and applications with logic too complex to run elsewhere.
Ethereum aligned holders
Users who keep assets on layer twos for cost reasons and evaluate a chain on its security model rather than on the size of its incentive program.
Good fit for
What to watch
- Cairo is not Solidity. You cannot reuse audited EVM contracts, the hiring pool is small, and fewer audit firms have deep experience, so engineering and security budgets run higher and timelines run longer.
- Liquidity and consumer attention are thinner than on the EVM layer twos. If your token needs an active trading audience from day one, this chain will make that harder rather than easier.
- Wallet and integration support lags the EVM standard. Some tools your users expect, and some services your partners assume exist, will need workarounds or are simply not available yet.
Launching on Starknet with Orca Web3.
The deliverables are the same everywhere. What changes per chain is everything about how they are made.
Account abstraction as a product claim
Native account contracts let us design onboarding that would be a hack elsewhere. We build the site and front end around that advantage instead of listing it as a technical footnote nobody reads.
Technical writing that engineers respect
This audience reads the documentation before the landing page. We write litepapers and docs that survive that reading order, with every marketing claim supported rather than leading the argument.
Realistic launch sequencing
We plan announcements, listings and community around a smaller and slower market, so momentum is built over months rather than staked on a single day that has to work.
Token launch on Starknet
Positioning, identity, litepaper, tokenomics design, launch site and TGE campaign.
RWA issuance
Institutional grade brand and disclosure aware communications for tokenized assets.
dApp front end
Wallet flows, chain switching and transaction states built for this network's tooling.
Launching on Starknet, answered.
Why choose Starknet over an EVM rollup?
Only for a specific reason. If your product needs provable computation, complex on chain logic that would be prohibitively expensive elsewhere, or account level features that are native here rather than emulated, the tradeoff can be worth it. If you want cheap Ethereum transactions and nothing more, an EVM rollup gives you that with a larger hiring pool, reusable audited code and deeper liquidity. Choosing a harder toolchain without a product reason is a decision you pay for in every sprint afterwards.
How much harder is the engineering really?
Materially harder, and mostly in ways that show up as time rather than as impossibility. Your engineers learn a new language and a different execution model, you cannot fork an existing audited contract, libraries that exist in Solidity may need writing from scratch, and finding auditors takes longer. Teams that plan for this manage fine. Teams that assume a Solidity codebase can be ported in a sprint end up rewriting their launch timeline in public. Ask your engineering lead for an honest estimate before you commit to a date.
What does native account abstraction let us do for users?
Because every account is a contract, the rules for signing can be yours. Session keys that let a user act without approving every action, recovery that does not depend on a seed phrase, a sponsor paying fees so the user never holds the fee token, and multi signature or hardware policies at the account level. These patterns exist elsewhere through added standards, but here they are the default rather than an extension. For consumer and gaming products this is the strongest reason to be on this chain.
How does Orca fit into a Starknet build?
We take brand, naming, narrative, litepaper, tokenomics presentation, launch site, dApp front end, campaign, community and the exchange listing kit. Your team writes and audits the Cairo. On this chain the biggest thing we add is translation, turning proving systems and account abstraction into language a user or an investor follows without a lecture, and building interface flows that actually use the account features rather than describing them. We do not deploy contracts, audit code, make markets or discuss price.
Chains a project weighing Starknet usually looks at too.
Building on Starknet?
Bring us the project and the date. We will tell you what it takes, whether Starknet is the right room for it, and what we would do differently if it is not.
Starknet and the STRK mark are trademarks of their respective owners and appear here to indicate a network we work on, not to imply endorsement, partnership or affiliation. Nothing on this page is financial, investment, tax or legal advice, and no asset named here is a recommendation to buy or hold anything.