StarkWare Postpones Wallet Upgrade Amid Protests on X

After users complained on X, formerly Twitter, the company behind the Starknet blockchain reversed its implementation of an upgrade that made the funds in some user wallets inaccessible.

StarkWare agreed to restore access to some wallets after X users lashed out that their wallets had been unfairly zeroed out following a tech upgrade, CoinDesk reported.

The issue appeared to impact the funds of users who had been too slow to update their Braavos or Argent wallets in time for the planned upgrade.

Like having money in your bank account “disappear”

Yesterday, X users complained on the social media network that StarkWare had cleared their account balances because their wallets were incompatible with the blockchain’s new 0.12.1 upgrade. One user wrote:

StarkWare just zeroed all user balances on old wallets that didn’t upgrade to latest contracts – equivalent of having the money in your bank account disappear if you don’t get the latest software package.

Upgrade reenabled

The company announced it had reenabled the upgrade in response to the complaints, thereby restoring users’ access to their funds. Due to technical issues, it might take a day for the funds in these wallets to show up again, the company added.

StarkWare had warned users to upgrade their wallets earlier this month. On August 7, they tweeted that it was “now time to ensure access” to funds for everyone who hadn’t upgraded their wallet already. Apparently, the warning had not been specific enough and not all users heeded it.

StarkWare to launch STARK Prover

In related news, the company is officially open-sourcing STARK Prover, its cryptographic software tool, today. They have renamed it Stone. StarkWare is a leader in “zero-knowledge” proof technology, a cryptographic technology that numerous platforms are using to scale the Ethereum Mainnet. The objective is to reduce fees and increase transaction throughput.