Starknet

A Cairo-language ZK rollup operated by StarkWare — distinct from EVM-compatible rollups in language and runtime.

Starknet uses Cairo (StarkWare's Turing-complete prover-friendly language) instead of Solidity. Account abstraction is native. Smaller stablecoin yield surface than EVM rollups but technically the most decentralised STARK-based system in production.

Related terms

ZK rollup (zero-knowledge rollup)An L2 that posts validity proofs to L1, enabling near-instant withdrawals and stronger trust assumptions than optimistic rollups.
L2 (Layer-2)A scaling network that inherits security from an L1 by posting state roots back — rollups, validiums, plasma.