Starkware co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that none of the things people feared about the merger happened, and everything happened as it should.
As the dust settled on the highly anticipated transition of the Ethereum network to proof-of-stake (PoS), Eli Ben-Sasson, the co-founder of Starkware, gave his thoughts on its execution and potential for the future.
Speaking to Cointelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson at the Token2049 event, Ben-Sasson shared his thoughts on the current situation post-merge and how it affects layer-2 projects like Starkware. In addition to that, the executive also gave his thoughts on the adoption and interest for layer-2 products in the crypto winter.
Looking back on the execution of the Ethereum Merge, Ben-Sasson rejoiced that the transition was flawless and said that things happened as they should. The executive explains that:
“The most important thing is that it was executed perfectly. Everything that was supposed to happen happened. And none of the things that people were worried about happened. And that’s great news.”
In addition, the executive also highlighted the importance of the new Ethereum network to be better for the environment. “It reduces the carbon footprint. That’s the big thing, and it also bodes well for the potential of future improvements,” he said.
According to Ben-Sasson, the merger also makes Ethereum a better settlement layer and a friendlier platform for layer-2 solutions. The executive emphasized that this is a very important development for their products at Starkware, because they will then offer the scaling, compression of the calculation and other improvements that their technology can deliver.
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In addition to the Ethereum merger, Ben-Sasson also shared that most of the adoption and interest in Starkware solutions are with projects that have also been successful in Layer-1 Ethereum. This includes non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi). In addition, the executive shared his expectations for the future. He said:
“I expect that someday the ability to perform much more massive computation with very low gas footprint will lead to completely new and unexpected applications that will be much more important.”
With all that has happened, the executive also shared his belief that despite many people describing the current situation of the crypto and blockchain space as a crypto winter, his team feels otherwise. “We feel it as spring towards balmy summer,” he said.
