StarkWare Restructures with Layoffs and Revenue Pivot

StarkWare, the blockchain company known for its zero-knowledge scaling technology, announced a major restructuring on Monday that includes workforce reductions and a shift toward developing revenue-generating products, moving away from its traditional focus on infrastructure.

CEO and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson outlined the changes during a companywide all-hands meeting, according to internal remarks shared with staff. The firm will divide into two independent business units: one dedicated to building monetizable applications, led by researcher Avihu Levy as general manager, and another focused on Starknet development, headed by Tom Brand. Each unit will handle its own engineering, product, business development, and go-to-market functions, adopting what Ben-Sasson described as a "startup mode" mindset to prioritize initiatives with high revenue potential and operate more efficiently.

The restructuring comes amid a sharp decline in revenue for Starknet, the company's Ethereum layer-2 network, which uses STARK-based zero-knowledge rollups to enable scalable transactions. Data from DeFiLlama shows Starknet's monthly revenue peaked at nearly $6 million in late 2023 but fell to about...