Starknet weighs leaving Ethereum to become a quantum-resistant L1

Starknet said on October 8 it is weighing a break from Ethereum to run as its own layer 1 blockchain, with the stated goal of becoming the first fully quantum-resistant network by 2027. Its STRK token jumped more than 20 percent.

That word came in an early Thursday post on the network's official X account. Minutes earlier, StarkWare co-founder and chief executive Eli Ben-Sasson had asked his own followers whether "Starknet becoming an L1 for post-quantum agility" was a good or bad idea. StarkWare builds Starknet. Neither post set a date for any decision.

What Starknet is proposing

Starknet runs today as a layer 2. It settles its transactions on Ethereum and leans on the larger chain for much of its security. A layer 2 is a network built on top of a base chain to make transactions cheaper and faster. Moving to layer 1 would make Starknet a base chain in its own right, in charge of its own consensus and its own security upgrades.

Ben-Sasson tied the idea to a talk he gave at the Token2049 conference on Thursday. He argued that the threat from quantum computing "may be MUCH closer than we think," and that fast-moving artificial intelligence made the danger worse. He called for what he termed "bunker mode," a push to harden a chain's cryptography before the threat lands. Strong words for a plan that has not gone to a vote.

Leaving Ethereum would not be free. A layer 2 borrows the security of the base chain beneath it. A base chain has to provide that security itself, through its own validators and its own staking, and it gives up the shared settlement that ties it to Ethereum's users and capital. Bitcoin, for its part, has not committed to any quantum-resistance date at all.

Why quantum resistance is the reason given

A quantum computer strong enough to break today's cryptography does not exist yet. The worry is that one could, in time, crack the math that protects wallets and signatures across most blockchains. Starknet says its own proof system already sidesteps the most exposed cryptography, because it rests on hash functions rather than the elliptic-curve math that quantum machines are expected to threaten first.

The catch sits in the parts Starknet does not control. In a roadmap published on June 30, StarkWare said the bridge that moves funds between Ethereum and Starknet, along with the data it posts back to Ethereum, both still rely on quantum-vulnerable cryptography. As a layer 2, Starknet cannot repair those pieces until Ethereum does so first. Ethereum, which is working through its own network upgrades, is targeting full quantum resistance by the end of 2029. A layer 1 of its own would let Starknet set its own timeline.

StarkWare's June plan split the work into stages. The first swaps an older hashing method for a newer one called BLAKE2 and is already running on a test network. A later stage would extend the same protection to contracts that are already live, which StarkWare said still needs a migration toolkit it is researching. The last stage, the one tied to the Ethereum bridge, cannot begin until Ethereum moves. That final dependency is the piece a layer 1 would cut loose.

Market reaction, and what it leaves out

Traders moved fast. STRK traded near $0.092 on October 10, 2026, up about 24 percent over the prior 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, close to its highest level in about nine months. Crypto Briefing reported that futures open interest in the token rose more than 50 percent in the first day, with daily trading on decentralized exchanges reaching about $33.7 million on October 8.

A jump like that rests on a plan that does not formally exist yet. There is no governance vote. There is no published technical blueprint for the switch. Starknet's June roadmap did not mention leaving Ethereum at all, which means the idea reached the public for the first time through a social media post. StarkWare has not said how a running network, its bridges and its users would cross over without breaking.

What to watch

The next real signal is a formal proposal. Any move from layer 2 to layer 1 would need approval from Starknet's governance, and StarkWare has said protocol changes always do. Watch for a published specification, a timeline, and some account of what happens to the roughly $680 million of STRK value, by CoinGecko's October 10 figure, and the funds bridged from Ethereum during any switch. Nothing is settled yet. Until it is, the claim to be "the first fully quantum-resistant network" by 2027 is a pledge, not a shipped product.