Hi all,
Thank you for attending our Starknet Governance Call on 17 September 2025. Hosted by @robertkodra (SNF), @eitanm-starkware (SW) covered recent Starknet downtimes together with @henri.lieutaud (SNF), and @starknet_rafael showed the outcome of the recent votes and SNF’s current planning in voting power delegation. Below you will find a brief summary of the call.
We invite you to participate in our next governance call held on 15 October 2025 - sign up here.
Best,
Rafael
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Date: 17 September 2025
Host: Robert (SNF)
Discussants: Henri (SNF), Eitan (SW), Rafael (SNF)
Participants: up to 19
Covered topics:
Starknet Downtime Analysis & Technical Debriefs
- Wednesday downtime: (Sep 10, 20:21 - 20:47 UTC)
- Configuration mishandling across 3 sequencers
- changing sequencer configurations triggered synchronisation issues
- Engineering team identified exact protocol gap immediately
- New internal protocols to alter sequencer configurations was implemented to prevent recurrence
- Friday downtime: (Sep 12, 19:56 - 20:01 UTC)
- Aerospike database writing issues
- Unrelated to v0.14 upgrade - existing system component
- Load-based problem (mainnet vs testnet traffic difference)
- Fixed by writing smaller batches to Aerospike
- Component being upgraded to Rust in v0.14.2 for decentralization
- Monday downtime: (Sep 1, 05:50 - 06:05 UTC)
- 9-minute outage from timeout failure
- Centralized component write operation lacked timeout mechanism
- System hung waiting for acknowledgment that never came
- Quick fix implemented - added retry logic with timeouts
- September 2nd major outage (Sep 2, 10:48 - 17:06 UTC):
- L1 node communication breakdown
- 2 sequencers lost L1 connectivity, 1 maintained connection
- Majority (blind) sequencers rejected blocks from informed sequencer
- Reboot attempt on wrong sequencer created crash loop
- Network dropped to 33% capacity, required reorg
- Prover system correctly rejected inconsistent state, preventing worse issues
- Post mortem coming
- Community Communication & Feedback Channels
- Primary information sources: Core Stars Telegram, Starknet status page and X
- Community detected issues through: monitoring bots, transaction failures, social media
- Potential App builder mitigation strategies discussed: transaction rebroadcasting post-reorg. Not a one size fit all solution though, DYOR
- Feedback channels: Telegram, Discord - product team actively monitoring
Delegate Voting Participation Analysis
- Available voting power: 2.2B STARK (60% of circulating supply)
- Actual participation: 9% voting power utilized across both recent proposals
- Voter counts: 2,100 (BTC staking) vs 2,500 (v0.14) - investigating discrepancy
- Starknet Foundation delegates: Only 17-18 out of 210 delegates voted (8-9%)
Foundation Delegate Program Issues & Solutions
- Current structure: 3-tier system distributing 1.7B STARK voting power
- Tier 1: 15 visionaries (38M STARK each)
- Tier 2: 45 builders/educators (12.6M STARK each)
- Tier 3: 150 participants (3.77M STARK each)
- Identified problems:
- Poor communication - delegates not properly informed of votes
- No contact data collected initially (foundational mistake)
- Only forum/social media notifications sent
- Planned improvements:
- Develop comprehensive communications plan
- Direct messaging system for all future votes
- Review inactive delegates across all tiers
- Reopen Tier 2 and Tier 3 applications
Community Polling Initiative Launch
- Purpose: Temperature checks on product/engineering questions beyond binding votes
- Format: Snapshot-based polls, 4 fixed polls annually
- Process: 4-week advance notice, curated questions, community voting period
- Q3 poll categories (launching September 23rd):
- Missing Starknet features (pre-confirmations, L1 finality)
- Privacy features needed
- Payment and gaming use cases
- Event attendance preferences
- Usage behavior patterns
- Governance token (vSTARK) future direction
Next Steps
- October 15th: Next governance call scheduled
- Feedback requested: Government forum input on delegate program improvements
- Upcoming polls: Community participation encouraged for Q3 poll