Starknet, an Ethereum layer‑2 network utilizing zero‑knowledge (ZK) rollups, is currently facing mainnet disruptions as we enter 2026.
In an X post, the Starknet team announced that the network is experiencing downtime and that engineers are “actively investigating the issue and working to restore full functionality as quickly as possible,” although the root cause has not been disclosed yet. At the time of this writing, the network had been down for just over two hours.
Starknet operates as a ZK‑rollup–based layer 2 that batches transactions offchain, posting cryptographic proofs to Ethereum, with the goal of achieving higher throughput and lower fees for smart contracts, decentralized finance, and gaming applications, all while inheriting Ethereum’s base‑layer security.
The project has also advocated for a Bitcoin DeFi, or BTCFi, initiative, presenting itself as the infrastructure to integrate Bitcoin-related financial applications into the Ethereum ecosystem. Despite the network issues, the STRK token price remained stable at the time of writing.
Related: Ethereum’s first ZK-rollup, ZKsync Lite, to be retired in 2026
Not the first time Starknet mainnet is down
This incident follows a series of outages in 2025 that have prompted closer scrutiny of Starknet’s reliability. In September, a significant upgrade known as Grinta (v0.14.0) caused an extended mainnet disruption, halting block production and necessitating two chain reorganizations that reverted about an hour of activity, forcing users to resubmit affected transactions.
This incident followed a previous multi‑hour outage in 2025 related to sequencer issues, with external trackers recording multiple instances of slow or halted block creation throughout the year.
A Starknet incident report on the September event indicated that the Grinta‑related downtime lasted approximately nine hours, attributing the issues to a series of problems, including failures in Ethereum RPC providers and bugs affecting sequencer behavior. This prompted the team to pledge to implement architectural changes and enhanced monitoring.
A representative from Starknet informed Cointelegraph that the team is working to resolve the current incident.
