ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation announced on its official blog that Diego Oliva has served as the first CEO of the Starknet Foundation since March 2023 and will step down after successfully establishing a strong team and structure for the foundation. James Strudwick will join the foundation as Executive Director starting January 2024, continuing to develop the Starknet ecosystem and its adoption.James Strudwick will take over the leadership of the foundation. To ensure that all activities of the foundation continue uninterrupted, Diego will remain in his position next month to assist with the transition.

ChainCatcher news, on-chain detective ZachXBT posted that the project ZKX, which suddenly announced its shutdown, has faced widespread condemnation from the community, including investors and market makers, while members of the Starknet Foundation defended it.Previously, Starknet Foundation member Henri responded to ZachXBT, stating, "ZKX has been contributing to the ecosystem for years. We know them and have worked alongside them; they have made contributions to the ecosystem that others could not. It is completely inappropriate to label them as scammers because of some wrong decisions (I do not defend this). This will negatively impact you and your judgment."

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation announced on social media that it will allocate an additional 50 million STRK for the DeFi Spring 2.0 program, bringing the total budget for the program to 90 million STRK.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the Starknet Foundation announced that as part of its new Catalyst program, it will distribute approximately $25.2 million worth of Starknet tokens to the 21 most outstanding projects in the ecosystem.Diego Oliva, CEO of the Starknet Foundation, stated that the project has chosen to reward the top user-facing protocols based on multiple factors, the weight of which is assessed jointly by the Starknet Foundation and independent third parties. This funding program aims to accelerate innovation in Starknet's Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution based on zero-knowledge rollup technology. The funding will be divided into two categories, separating advanced projects from emerging projects on the network.The top six projects eligible for funding include the token launch platform Ekubo, the DeFi protocol AVNU with gasless transactions, the on-chain strategy game Influence, the on-chain gaming world Realms, the upcoming DeFi protocol Nostra for crypto super applications, and the decentralized perpetual futures exchange ZKX.

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation announced on social media the launch of a seed funding program, which will provide approximately $5 million in funding for its developers, aiming to support at least 200 additional teams, with a single grant amounting to 25,000 USDC.Previously, the Starknet seed fund program completed a small pilot, providing a total of $500,000 in funding to 20 teams. The new program is aimed at projects that have developed a minimum viable product (MVP) or proof of concept and plan to use or build upon existing Starknet tools and integrations.It is reported that the Starknet seed fund program aims to provide non-dilutive funding to support teams that promote the development of the Starknet ecosystem.

ChainCatcher message, the on-chain metaverse game Realms.World posted on platform X that the Starknet Foundation granted it 2 million STRK through Biblio DAO, with 1 million paid immediately and another 1 million locked for 4 years.

ChainCatcher message, the Starknet Foundation stated on social media that it will reissue STRK airdrops for three types of user groups, including:· Collective Stakers: The foundation initially intended to distribute STRK to eligible collective stakers through the staking protocols used by users. Although many staking protocols were unable to complete the distribution task, the currently supported protocols or entities include: Lido, Rocket Pool, BloxStaking, SharedStake, stakefish, Consensys, and Ankr Staking. Collective stakers who stake through the above protocols and are recognized by the Starknet Foundation as eligible for Provisions will be able to directly claim STRK through the Provisions portal.· StarkEx Users Misidentified as VeVe Users: Immutable users identified as non-VeVe users in the updated list received from Immutable will be able to claim STRK through the portal.· VeVe Users: Ongoing discussions are taking place with VeVe regarding token distribution.

According to ChainCatcher news, The Block reported that the Starknet Foundation announced that the Starknet mainnet will undergo the Starknet 0.13.1 upgrade during the Ethereum Dencun upgrade. The Starknet 0.13.1 upgrade adds support for EIP4844 to reduce DA costs, as well as optimizations related to the shared prover SHARP to lower computational costs. With the Starknet 0.13.1 version update, Starknet will transition from using the expensive "calldata" method to send data to Ethereum to the more cost-effective "blobs" transaction type, significantly reducing fees. Calldata currently accounts for 85% to 90% of the Gas fees paid for transactions published on the Starknet network.In addition, Starknet stated that it will support Dynamic Layouts technology by the end of the third quarter, which can optimize space within transaction proofs, significantly lowering costs and thereby reducing user fees. Starknet will also launch the Volition feature by the end of 2024 or early 2025 to further reduce costs, allowing developers to choose to store data directly on-chain or off-chain based on cost and security needs.

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation has announced the establishment of a gaming committee, which consists of six experts tasked with promoting the growth of gaming on Starknet. The committee's role includes analyzing, strategizing, and recommending plans to expand Starknet's gaming ecosystem, with its success measured by usage metrics such as daily active users, retention rates, and revenue.It is reported that the committee members are appointed by the Starknet Foundation Board, including Henri Lieutaud from the Starknet Foundation, Oli Freuler from Starkware, Gabin Marignier from Focus Tree, Chris Lexmond from Unstoppable Games, Tarrence van As from Cartridge, and Loaf from Loot Realms.

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation announces the official launch of the DeFi Spring event. To celebrate the Starknet DeFi Spring and the introduction of STRK incentives, the Starknet Foundation will conduct a month-long series of tasks on Starknet, releasing a new task every two days for users to complete. Users will be able to earn XP based on the number of tasks they complete and explore the participating protocols in Starknet's DeFi Spring.DeFi Spring is a phase lasting six to eight months, during which a total of 40 million STRK incentives will be distributed to participating protocols to encourage liquidity provision on the network.The first program focuses on liquidity provision. In the future, initiatives planned for the second and third quarters will focus on trading volume, transactions, as well as DeFi subsidies and incubation programs.

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation officially stated, "Provisions" (STRK airdrop) claims are now open, with a deadline of June 20, 2024.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, StarkWare CEO and co-founder Uri Kolodny has resigned but will remain a board member of StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation.It is reported that StarkWare co-founder and president Eli Ben-Sasson will succeed him as CEO.

ChainCatcher message, the Starknet Foundation has released a community update, the Starknet Early Community Members Program (ECMP) will not be announced today, but will be made public on the day of implementation. The results will be announced around the specified date, and ECMP applicants will not be contacted before that date.

ChainCatcher news, according to official announcements, StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation have launched the Devonomics program, which will select certain ecosystem projects and distribute a portion of network fees (tentatively set at 8%) to ecosystem builders to support the development of the Starknet ecosystem.It is reported that the first distribution will include the transaction fees accumulated from the launch of the Starknet mainnet to November 30, with a total distribution amount of 1,600 ETH, valued at approximately 3.5 million USD. Subsequently, as the STRK token is launched, the distribution of network fees will be converted into STRK token form.In addition, the program will also distribute fees to infrastructure developers. Infrastructure projects will receive 2% of the network fees, which will be further segmented based on their level of support in the ecosystem community voting.

According to ChainCatcher news and reported by CoinDesk, Starknet plans to "soon" distribute over 1.8 billion STRK tokens. Starknet stated that approximately 900 million STRK have been allocated to the foundation's supply committee for rewarding users and community members for their past and future contributions, with another 900 million tokens specifically designated for user transaction fee rebates.In October of this year, the Starknet Foundation allocated 50 million STRK tokens for a new Early Community Member Program (ECMP). Previously, the Starknet Foundation announced that the airdrop eligibility deadline has been set, and the airdrop plan will be announced once finalized. The total supply of STRK token contracts is 10 billion. Of this, 50% will be retained by the organization, while the remainder will be distributed to core developers, ecosystem contributors, and the community.

ChainCatcher message, the Starknet Foundation stated on the X platform that it is developing a plan to airdrop tokens to certain users and contributors. The technical team will build and test different frontends, some of which will be adopted, while others will not.In addition, the draft plan shown in yesterday's screenshot is still under development, and the deadline for determining the criteria for who can receive tokens or the amount of tokens has been set. Currently, any activities will not affect airdrop eligibility. The Starknet Foundation will share the finalized official standards and terms details once they are determined.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Starknet Foundation has confirmed a screenshot showing the draft of the airdrop plan and stated that an airdrop snapshot has been taken.The Starknet Foundation emphasized that the screenshot indicates the draft plan is still under development. The eligibility deadline for the airdrop has been set, and any subsequent actions by users will not affect future airdrops.

ChainCatcher news, the Starknet Foundation announced the establishment of a DeFi committee. The committee is chaired by six members, and its main purpose is to guide and promote the development of the DeFi ecosystem on Starknet.

ChainCatcher news, the smart contract wallet Argent has partnered with the Starknet Foundation to launch the startup incubator Hito Studios, providing funding, legal, and recruitment support for Starknet builders. Among them, the NFT marketplace Unframed and the decentralized trading platform Ekubo, launched by the former chief engineer of Uniswap, have already joined to assist in the launch.Argent co-founder Itamar Lesuisse stated that Hito has already allocated millions of dollars in funding for several projects.

ChainCatcher news, according to the official announcement, the Starknet Foundation has officially announced the first batch of EAG (Early Adopter Grants) funding projects, with a total of 67 teams receiving funding, covering areas such as NFT, infrastructure, DeFi, and DID.The total budget for EAG reaches 10 million STRK, which will be allocated to ecological projects through multiple rounds of selection, aiming to provide early momentum for the Starknet ecosystem through actual on-chain deployments. (Source link)