DAU of 8? The Data Truth in the Solana vs. Starknet Public Opinion Battle

Original Title: "Daily Active Users of 8? The Truth behind the Data Battle between Solana and Starknet"

Original Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

On the evening of January 14, the Solana official account unexpectedly posted a mockery of Starknet, stating that "it has only 8 daily active users and 10 daily transactions, yet supports a $10 billion circulating market cap and a $150 billion maximum valuation," and bluntly said Starknet should be reset.

One hour after the post was made, the Starknet official account quickly replied with a picture of an ugly black chimpanzee, asking, "Who told Solana about this little brother's data?" StarkWare's CEO even resorted to personal attacks, commenting under Eli Ben-Sasson's mocking post, "Solana has 8 marketing interns (all bald), who tweet 10 times a day." Solana co-founder Toly also posted, stating, "This post has received a great response; the responsible marketing personnel should be promoted."

As tensions escalated between the two parties, some in the crypto community began urging for peace. He Yi posted, "Take a deep breath and relax, we are all friends, let's value harmony," but at the same time, he captioned it with "peanuts, melon seeds, bottled water" to show a bystander attitude. The Near Protocol official account suggested that Solana and Starknet should become friends again.

However, some believe that this was a deliberately orchestrated official event for exposure, warming up for the upcoming collaboration between the two parties. At the same time, some netizens discovered that Solana's post was not original, as a user had posted the exact same tweet back in April 2024.

Solana's Mockery of Starknet Tweet Copied a User's 2024 Tweet

Regardless of the true underlying reason for Solana's editor's sudden illness to mock Starknet, from a data perspective, Starknet is no longer the "ghost town on the chain" it used to be.

The Thunderclap in Silence

In 2024, the L2 competition in the market was intense, and the network effect was strong. Arbitrum and OP mainnet had already covered a large number of commonly used scenarios. Therefore, after the Starknet airdrop ended, users experienced a significant loss, becoming the subject of criticism and ridicule indeed.

However, after more than a year of hard work and perseverance, Starknet is now able to go toe-to-toe with most L1s. According to DeFiLlama data, Starknet's TVL has been on the rise since September 2025, currently exceeding $300 million, returning to the 2024 level.Ranking 22nd in the blockchain rankings, surpassing various L1s and L2s such as Monad, Scroll, Linea, and Sei.

At the same time, its stablecoin market cap, fee revenue, and ecosystem DEX trading volume have also been on the rise since September 2025. Starknet's daily fee revenue over the past 4 months has remained in the range of $5,000 to $10,000, although it cannot compare to the daily fee revenue of 2023-2024 (averaging over $150,000 per day), it still ranks high among many blockchains.

Odaily Planet Daily once compiled a ranking of fee revenue for 40 mainstream blockchains in mid-December, and Starknet made it into the top 15, with daily fee revenue surpassing blockchains such as Monad and TON.

In terms of on-chain activity, Starknet has finally cultivated a group of truly loyal users (rather than just speculators). According to data from the Dune dashboard created by the Starknet Foundation, Starknet currently maintains a daily active user base of 2,000-4,000 (unique addresses), with daily transactions exceeding 240,000.

Compared to Starknet's peak daily active users of over 100,000 in 2023, Starknet's current daily active users are indeed still insignificant. However, in terms of transaction volume, the transaction frequency of these less than 2% of addresses has reached about one-third of the 2023 level (daily transactions exceeding 600,000 in 2023).From a data perspective, it proves that the users currently remaining on Starknet are high-quality users with genuine transaction needs, contributing most of the network's fee revenue.

Do not simply view Starknet as a gathering place for "niche enthusiasts" in the blockchain. In fact, Starknet has received favor from external funding and has high user retention. According to Artemis data, Starknet saw a net inflow of $504.2 million in funds over 3 months, leading the blockchain space, with the second-place Polygon trailing by $100 million, far ahead of blockchains like Solana and BSC.

Escaping the Ethereum L2 Label, All in BTCFi

The reason why Starknet is able to stage a comeback is actually quite simple. Instead of riding the waves of blockchain hype like Solana, BSC, and Base, Starknet has directly gone All in on BTCFi.

Today, Starknet is shedding the Ethereum L2 label, and its official account has added a note (BTCFi arc) after the Starknet name. In March 2025, StarkWare, the parent company of Starknet, announced the establishment of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve." Initially seen as a marketing gimmick, the public did not expect Starknet to be serious. At the end of September 2025, after over half a year of development, Starknet announced the launch of BTC Staking and 100 million STRK incentives. Users staking BTC on Starknet can receive staking rewards and STRK incentives.

As of now, BTCFi has been live on Starknet for over 3 months, with the product launch highly correlated with Starknet on-chain data warming up.

According to Dune data, the value of Bitcoin currently staked on Starknet exceeds $214 million, accounting for approximately 70% of Starknet's total TVL ($300 million); about 50% of the assets deposited on the platform are native BTC, with the remainder being various wrapped versions of BTC, predominantly SolvBTC and WBTC.

The Bitcoin ecosystem on Starknet has also gradually matured, featuring everything from wallets to cross-chain bridges, staking, lending, yield protocols, all with well-established playbooks.

Starknet BTCFi Ecosystem Map

Users can stake Bitcoin on platforms like Endur and Voyager and delegate it to validators. In return, stakers receive STRK tokens (the current Endur APY pegged to STRK is approximately 2.09%). Subsequently, the earned LST tokens can be redeposited into lending protocols like Vesu for additional earnings. For institutional investors, Re7 Capital can also tailor customized yield solutions.

As for why Starknet dares to go All in BTCFi, perhaps it is related to the founder's personal experience. As early as 2013, before the birth of Starknet, Eli Ben-Sasson was already researching the use of zero-knowledge proofs to improve Bitcoin, a research that eventually became one of Starknet's core technologies (STARK cryptography). Therefore, fully embracing BTCFi today is, to some extent, a return to the original intention.

Although the blockchain world does not always reward idealists and quiet contributors, Starknet's pace has become lighter and more robust since the airdrop "hostage" incident.

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