gave @starknet another go. here’s an experience 🧵.

http://degenlibrary.notion.site | http://linktr.ee/gliblik | quotes not my own

1/

here's a disclaimer. 

this thread looks at ux in isolation. it lets go of everything i know about optimistic rollups, cairo, zk, bridging, wallets, gas fees, whatever. the aim is to wear the shoes of users and see what's up.

the less filtered sibling of Argent 


https://www.argent.xyz/

3/

went with @argent as i’ve been using their mobile app for years. it doesn’t disappoint - easy onboarding, a simple & clean interface with a premium feel. wallet creation in the front, secret words in the back = smoother ux.

4/

bridge ux is clean. bridging with most l2s has the same problem doe - the tx confirms and succeeds, funds leave my l1 wallet, but guess what? three minutes fly past and my l2 wallet shows a round zero. where’s the money? fourth minute i finally see it. muggles won’t forgive.

5/

now that i’ve bridged, onto the apps. first stop - nostrafinance. let’s swap.

the first thing i notice is swapping isn’t instant. i execute the trade, then i wait. on average 15-30 seconds. being used to near-instant swaps on solana and base, this isn’t too great.

6/

nostrafinance itself looks good. quick tip - probably worthwhile to change the boosted apy color from red to something else. red apy = not good apy.

7/

it seems i can’t trade 100% amounts of eth. it’s probably by design to ensure that users won’t run out of gas with the next tx. i choose 100%, initial tx validations pass, it’s sent to the chain, only to fail later without an error message i can understand.

8/

the explorer. post swap i go check my tx using starkscan. in a way it’s cool that i see the tx journey all the way down to settling on an l1, but the ui implies my tx hasn’t really completed. 8 hours to confirm my swap on starknet? muggles will struggle.

9/

the interesting thing about nostrafinance points programme is that there's over 240,000 wallets participating. feels like i’ve missed out and it’s too late. makes me want to deploy on other chains where it's less crowded.

10/

tx fees across apps. it seems i’m paying anywhere between $0.005 to $0.04 for swaps. not great, not terrible. still, @base and @solana charge a cent or less. post 4844 haven’t yet figured out which tx fee i consider cheap - probably anything at or below a cent.

11/

tx fee forecasts. more often than not the estimated and maximum fees offered vary by 4x. leaves me puzzled as a user - should i mentally prepare for a 4x higher fee than estimated? or is it an off chance this will actually happen?

12/

withdrawing back to l1. an 8-hour withdrawal wait isn’t great, but it’s way better than the optimistic 7-day window.

13/

@starknet feels like something i could start using on a daily basis. cheap enough fees, nice interfaces, enough to do on-chain.

the biggest improvement i'd like to see is tx confirmation times. nothing below near-instant will do.

2/

first thing i notice is none of my evm wallets work - surprise surprise. installing yet another wallet extension can be a significant hurdle for newcomers. an @argent eth l1 wallet with a stark bridge might alleviate this.