Latest Starknet (STRK) News Update

By CMC AI
19 February 2026 12:43PM (UTC+0)

What is the latest news on STRK?

TLDR

Starknet is pushing into institutional privacy while maintaining its development momentum. Here are the latest updates:

  1. EY Nightfall Integration (17 February 2026) – StarkWare wires enterprise-grade privacy into Starknet, targeting confidential institutional DeFi.

  2. Top Development Activity (10 February 2026) – Starknet ranks 5th in Santiment's developer rankings, signaling strong ongoing building efforts.

Deep Dive

1. EY Nightfall Integration (17 February 2026)

Overview: StarkWare has integrated EY’s Nightfall, a zero-knowledge proof-based privacy protocol, into the Starknet Layer 2. This enables institutions to conduct private payments, treasury management, and DeFi activities on public Ethereum rails. The system allows for transactions to be private by default while supporting selective disclosure for auditors and regulators, combining confidentiality with necessary compliance controls.

What this means: This is bullish for STRK because it directly addresses a major barrier for institutional capital—lack of privacy on public blockchains. The partnership with a major auditing firm like EY adds significant credibility and could drive new enterprise use cases and liquidity to the Starknet ecosystem. However, the network must prove its reliability after past outages to fully capitalize on this institutional push. (CoinMarketCap)

2. Top Development Activity (10 February 2026)

Overview: Analytics firm Santiment ranked Starknet (STRK) 5th in its latest monthly development activity rankings, which track meaningful GitHub events. This places it alongside projects like MetaMask, Hedera, and Chainlink, indicating consistent and significant engineering work behind the scenes.

What this means: This is a neutral-to-positive signal for STRK. Sustained, high-level development activity is often a hallmark of projects committed to long-term growth and less likely to be abandoned. It suggests the core team is actively building through market cycles, which could support future network utility and adoption. (The Daily Hodl)

Conclusion

Starknet's trajectory is defined by a dual focus: forging ahead with high-profile institutional technology like EY Nightfall while consistently executing on its development roadmap. Will its push for compliant privacy successfully onboard the next wave of institutional users?

What are people saying about STRK?

TLDR

The chatter around STRK is a tug-of-war between deep tech conviction and brutal price reality. Here’s what’s trending:

  1. Bullish believers tout its quantum-resistant tech and Bitcoin staking as a long-term game-changer.

  2. Technical analysts see a coin trapped in a bearish trend, testing critical support near all-time lows.

  3. Critics highlight network outages and relentless token unlocks as major red flags for stability and price.

Deep Dive

1. @nghoangdai58: Championing Quantum-Resistant Tech bullish

"Starknet is the Quantum resistant blockchain $STRK is the Quantum resistant coin... the best tech from Starkware STARKs" – @nghoangdai58 (1,947 followers · 23 Dec 2025 12:57 AM UTC) View original post What this means: This is bullish for STRK because it frames the token as a unique, future-proof asset within the Layer 2 landscape, aiming to attract investors focused on long-term technological superiority over short-term price action.

2. @CryptoJournaal: Analyzing Sustained Bearish Pressure bearish

"Starknet ($STRK) is under sustained bearish pressure, trading near its all-time low of $0.075–$0.085 as of January 19, 2026... Price is below all major Fibonacci retracement levels and the 20- and 50-day moving averages." – @CryptoJournaal (30,042 followers · 19 Jan 2026 05:44 PM UTC) View original post What this means: This is bearish for STRK because it underscores a clear downtrend with weak momentum, suggesting the market is in an accumulation phase at best, with a confirmed reversal still absent.

3. @blockz_hub: Raising Stability Concerns After Outage bearish

"Starknet $STRK Outage Sparks Stability Concerns. The disruption raises questions about the network's reliability among investors and users." – @blockz_hub (63,394 followers · 2 Sep 2025 07:01 PM UTC) View original post What this means: This is bearish for STRK because repeated network downtime directly undermines user and investor confidence, a critical factor for any Layer 2 solution whose value proposition hinges on security and uptime.

Conclusion

The consensus on STRK is mixed, split between unwavering faith in its foundational technology and acute concern over its price performance and network reliability. The key metric to watch is the growth in staked STRK and BTC versus the selling pressure from monthly token unlocks; this balance will signal whether fundamental demand can overcome persistent supply-side headwinds.

What is the latest update in STRK’s codebase?

TLDR

Starknet's latest major codebase update focuses on enhancing network efficiency and fee predictability.

  1. Prover Optimization & Fee Market (10 December 2025) – Switched to a more efficient hash function and introduced a 1559-style fee mechanism for predictable costs.

Deep Dive

1. Prover Optimization & Fee Market (10 December 2025)

Overview: This mainnet upgrade, v0.14.1, makes the network more efficient and user fees more predictable. It reduces the computational overhead for developers and aims for faster transaction confirmations when the network isn't busy.

The core technical change is migrating the compiled_class_hash computation from the Poseidon hash function to the BLAKE hash family (SNIP-34). This change is optimized for Starknet's next-generation prover, Stwo, making these critical hashes roughly 8x more efficient to prove. The update also implements a working EIP-1559-style fee market for L2 gas, which dynamically adjusts fees based on network congestion and establishes a target price that the system will trend toward.

What this means: This is bullish for STRK because it directly lowers the cost for developers to build on the network and makes transaction fees more stable and predictable for end-users. During periods of low activity, blocks can finalize in as little as 2 seconds, making the user experience noticeably faster. These improvements create a more sustainable economic model as Starknet continues to decentralize.

(Starknet)

Conclusion

The v0.14.1 upgrade sharpens Starknet's core value proposition: a more efficient, cost-predictable, and user-friendly Layer 2. How will the network's growing focus on protocol-level privacy build upon this technical foundation?

What is next on STRK’s roadmap?

TLDR

Starknet's development continues with these milestones:

  1. EY Nightfall Institutional Privacy Integration (February 2026) – Enables KYC-compliant private payments and DeFi for banks on public Starknet rails.

  2. Community-Driven Next Roadmap Phase (TBD) – Soliciting input to define Starknet's future specialization beyond just scaling Ethereum.

Deep Dive

1. EY Nightfall Institutional Privacy Integration (February 2026)

Overview: StarkWare announced the integration of EY's Nightfall, a zero-knowledge (ZK) privacy protocol, into Starknet on February 17, 2026 (Cointelegraph). This technology allows institutions to conduct confidential B2B payments, treasury management, and DeFi activities on Starknet's public layer-2 infrastructure. Transactions are private by default but support selective disclosure for audits and compliance, addressing a key barrier for regulated entities.

What this means: This is bullish for STRK because it directly targets institutional capital, potentially increasing network usage and demand for STRK for transaction fees. However, it is neutral in the short term as adoption depends on overcoming Starknet's past reliability challenges, which have included several mainnet outages in 2025.

2. Community-Driven Next Roadmap Phase (TBD)

Overview: With the v0.14.0 upgrade marking the completion of the previous technical roadmap, the Starknet team is now soliciting community input to define the next phase of development (Starknet). This process, initiated in July 2025, aims to shift Starknet's focus from being a generic "cheap Ethereum" scaling solution to a specialized platform with unique capabilities, aligning with broader industry debates about Layer-2 evolution.

What this means: This is neutral for STRK as the outcome is uncertain. A successful, well-defined roadmap could reignite developer interest and clarify Starknet's competitive edge. The bearish risk is that prolonged uncertainty or a lack of compelling differentiation could see the project lose momentum to other specialized chains.

Conclusion

Starknet is pivoting from a pure scaling narrative to specializing in institutional privacy and defining its next unique value proposition. Will the focus on regulated finance and community-driven planning be enough to distinguish it in a crowded Layer-2 landscape?

CMC AI can make mistakes. Not financial advice.