StarkWare CEO Eli Ben Sasson says he expects transaction speed on the firm’s Ethereum layer 2 Starknet to increase four-fold while fees fall “5x” over the next three months — which could see it competing with the likes of Solana.

The network improvements will mostly come from “better compilation and faster execution” on Cairo — Starknet’s native smart contract language, Ben Sasson told Cointelegraph at the DevCon 2024 in Bangkok last week.

It would see Starknet cross the 1000 transactions per second (TPS) milestone and compete with the likes of Solana, which typically processes a non-vote TPS between 800 to 1050, data from Solana Compass shows.

Starknet’s TPS will surpass 1000 or more within the next “three months,” Ben Sasson asserted.

“You can take it to the bank.”

Fees on the already cheap Starknet will be vastly reduced, too, Ben Sasson added.

“[We] should have both 5x lower transaction costs on Starknet, probably making it the cheapest L2.”

Reducing fees is a priority for Ben Sasson’s firm as it expects a boom in blockchain activity and a resulting “spike in gas prices and block prices.”

Look out, Solana: Starknet to 4X TPS within 3 months image 0

StarkWare CEO Eli Ben Sasson. Source: Cointelegraph

While Starknet can process 200 or more TPS over short periods, it averaged a network record 129 TPS on Oct. 29, Ben Sasson’s firm confirmed on Nov. 12.

Starknet actually notched a peak of 857 TPS around the same time, though that was achieved in a controlled stress test.

Meanwhile, network fees on Starknet remain “ultra-low” at a median of $0.002 per transaction.

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Starknet is the third-cheapest Ethereum layer 2 behind Optimism and Blast at $0.0013 and $0.002 over the last 30 days, according to Starknet’s Dune Analytics dashboard.

All three Ethereum layer 2s have been cheaper than Solana over the last 30 days, which has seen its average non-vote transaction fee fluctuate between $0.001 and $0.11 over the last two months, other Dune Analytics data shows.

StarkWare is also looking to introduce the OP_CAT improvement proposal to Bitcoin, which would make Starknet the first layer 2 to settle natively on Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Ben Sasson expects that upgrade to go live sometime within the next 12 months.

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