BITCOIN SEASON 2: Bitcoin's Missing Piece: Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Eli Ben-Sasson announces StarkNet's Bitcoin initiative: native BTC staking, 100M STRK token allocation for lending, and why zero-knowledge proofs are essential for Bitcoin to achieve Satoshi's original vision of peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries.
Oct 1, 2025
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Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkNet and Zcash, announces StarkNet's major Bitcoin news: native Bitcoin staking on StarkNet. Starknet has 100 million STRK tokens allocated for competitive Bitcoin lending rates and Bitcoin yield strategies. Eli explains why zero-knowledge proofs are the scalability solution Bitcoin needs, how StarkNet enables self-custodial Bitcoin DeFi, and why OP_CAT could be the nine lines of code that save Bitcoin from becoming just another store-of-value asset for the wealthy.
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Notes:
• Bitcoin staking now live on StarkNet
• 100M STRK tokens for Bitcoin lending incentives
• 500M+ STRK already staked in protocol
• 21-day unstaking period for Bitcoin
• $1M research fund for OP_CAT development
• ZK-STARKs verify million transactions for one cost
• RS7 launching Bitcoin yield strategies
00:00 Start
01:46 Bitcoin staking is now live
03:08 What is Bitcoin Staking?
06:07 History of Zero Knowledge Proofs
08:00 ZK & scaling
09:05 How scaling would work
10:57 Covenants (OPCAT, CTV)
11:55 STRK token
14:12 PoW vs PoS
16:09 Practical benefits from staking
20:26 Staking curve & rates
21:57 100M STRK tokens
24:14 Why start with lending?
25:29 Re7 Capital
28:31 Re7 function
36:08 Consensus for covenants
👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!
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