StarkWare founder teases a "shocking" DeFi project on Starknet: beta tester registration is now open
The crypto community's attention is focused on a new mystery from Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and CEO of StarkWare. He announced the recruitment of beta testers for what he describes as a "shocking" DeFi project that will be deployed on the Starknet network.
The announcement itself is intriguingly sparse on details. Ben-Sasson invites those interested to participate in testing, asking them to write to him directly via private messages. No information about the functionality, tokenomics, or even the name of the project has been disclosed yet. However, judging by the community's reaction, interest is enormous: Ben-Sasson has already noted that he received an "incredible number" of applications and redirected the flow of applicants to a user named 0xVegabond, who apparently oversees the selection process.
Why this matters: the weight of Ben-Sasson's figure
To understand the level of expectations, it's enough to look at Eli Ben-Sasson's background. He is not just a marketer or a serial entrepreneur. Above all, he is an outstanding cryptographer and scientist. He is one of the co-authors of Zcash, the first major project to implement confidential transactions on the blockchain. But his main achievement, which shapes the landscape of the entire industry, is co-authoring the development of the ZK-STARK zero-knowledge proof system. It is this technology that underpins Starknet and, in essence, made modern ZK-rollups possible.
As one user rightly noted in the comments, it took the industry about five years to "catch up" with the ideas laid out by Ben-Sasson. Therefore, his personal involvement in a new DeFi project is a signal of the highest level. This is not about an ordinary fork or clone, but about something that could potentially redefine the rules of the game in decentralized finance.
For now, we only have a teaser and the standard disclaimer that this is not an investment recommendation. But given the creator's track record and his rarity in terms of publicly promoting projects, this announcement is worth watching closely.
My expert opinion: All this hype around the "shocking" project is not just hype. Ben-Sasson is a figure whose words carry weight in academic and engineering circles. His direct call for testing, bypassing traditional PR channels, suggests that the team is betting on high-quality feedback from the community, rather than mass capital attraction. This could be a sign of a truly innovative approach, not just another speculative tool. In the coming weeks, we will likely find out whether these expectations are justified.