A friend said: If you still haven’t figured out $STRK this October
If you don’t know why it suddenly surged 203%, then your information sources are total garbage.
But there’s more behind that 203% than just “speculating on expectations.”
This article connects the dots across three STRK themes: quantum resistance, privacy, and unlock pressure.
At least after reading this, you won’t blindly buy into some mystery bag at the top (key point).
According to CoinGecko, STRK is up 203% over the past 30 days and 64% over the past 7 days.
CoinGlass shows it briefly surged to 0.119 on the evening of 10/11, with a 7-day gain of up to 117%.
Among October’s large-cap tokens, few can match its gains.
❚ The immediate catalyst for this rally: L1 expectations
On 10/8, Starknet said it was “actively considering” moving from an Ethereum L2 to an independent L1, with the goal of becoming “the first fully quantum-resistant network” by 2027
Put simply, nothing has been decided yet: there's no governance vote or official migration timeline, just “something they're considering.” But the market doesn't care—it draws the chart first and asks questions later
And there's another token unlock on 10/15. According to the official release schedule, up to 127 million tokens will be released each month to early contributors and investors, with this pace continuing until March 2027
❚ Starknet has had quantum resistance in its DNA since Day 1
Many people think quantum resistance is a new concept that just emerged this year and that Starknet is scrambling to catch up. That's really not the case
STARK proofs, the foundation of Starknet, are based on hash functions and don't rely on elliptic curves,
This design was already laid out in a 2018 paper by StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson
In plain English, the encryption methods that quantum computers can break today are mainly elliptic-curve cryptography,
The underlying mathematical tools behind STARKs were designed from the outset to avoid this issue, making them quantum-resistant by nature
More importantly, every Starknet account is a smart contract (native account abstraction), so users who want to switch to a quantum-resistant signature (such as Falcon-512) can simply upgrade their account
No hard fork needed, and neither addresses nor assets change—it's as simple as changing the keyboard on your phone
Real transfers using quantum-resistant accounts have already taken place on mainnet, and OpenZeppelin has released a deployable version. It actually works—it's not just a PowerPoint presentation
The roadmap has three steps (announced on 6/30)
1/ New contracts and transactions are quantum-resistant by default; rollout is underway
2/ Migrate existing contracts over
3/ The bridge and data layer have to stay in sync with Ethereum
The third step is precisely what prompted the idea of “considering independence as an L1”
Whether Ethereum itself adopts quantum resistance is not Starknet's decision to make, so it's considering going independent instead
❚ The privacy track: from STRK20 to shadow accounts
STRK20 launched on Starknet on 6/9
It's a privacy framework that lets any ERC-20 asset be “shielded”
Once deposited into the privacy pool, the sender, recipient, amount, and token are all hidden, with transactions verified on-chain using zero-knowledge proofs
and Zcash
The biggest difference from traditional privacy coins is its “compliance-by-design” approach
When each user registers, they encrypt their viewing key and provide it to an auditor
If a lawful regulatory request comes in, only the relevant records can be disclosed, without affecting other users
It's like keeping a copy of your own safe key: normally it stays locked away, and the police can only open your compartment with legal authorization—they can't turn the whole vault upside down
strkBTC also launched on 5/12. It's a privacy-focused Bitcoin backed by BTC: you can borrow against it on Vesu, provide liquidity on Ekubo, and stake it on Endur to get xstrkBTC
Starting in September, Garden will offer swaps through the official strkBTC bridge, supporting transfers in from more than 11 chains
Things moved quickly in September
- Ekubo launched private swaps
- YieldStark has privacy features built in
- Chance integrated STRK20 into an AI Agent. A transfer can be authorized in one go, while the amount and both parties remain completely hidden from outsiders
As of the end of September, 9 protocols had integrated STRK20, and more than 220 developers built 200 projects at the privacy hackathon
On 10/14, shadow accounts were added as well
This fills a gap in STRK20 by adding “public DeFi”
STRK20 is suited to use cases like transfers and swaps, where everything can be fully hidden
But activities like lending and staking inherently require public accounting, so they can't be completely hidden
The idea behind shadow accounts is to carry out these operations at an address “unlinked” from your main wallet
Others can see how much this shadow address has borrowed or staked, but they can't link it to your real identity
❚ Back to the price: the narrative is fine, but the price has already moved ahead
The dual narratives of quantum resistance and privacy are real for STRK
Technically, it doesn't rely on elliptic curves—that alone puts it miles ahead of many “quantum-resistant concept coins” on the market
But the price action over the past month has already priced in narratives like “L1 independence” and “compliant privacy going mainstream”
What's more, another unlock is coming on 10/15, and these monthly releases will continue until March 2027
My personal take: the narrative is there, but there's no need to chase it at the weekly high
If you're really confident, there's time to wait for a decent pullback or for a clear signal from an L1 governance vote before getting in
After all, the two most expensive things in crypto
One, buying into a rally; two, thinking you can outrun the new tokens unlocked each month