"Ethereum's Starknet Welcomes First Gaming App, Nums"

Ethereum's Layer-2 Starknet has welcomed its first gaming application-chain, Nums, which settles transactions on the network. This marks a significant milestone for Starknet, a layer-2 solution built on top of Ethereum.

Nums, the layer-3 app-chain, is constructed using the "SN Stack," a customizable toolkit developed by StarkWare, the primary developer behind Starknet. The SN Stack enables developers to create layer-3 blockchains leveraging Starknet's technology. Nums is an on-chain game where players attempt to sequence a series of 20 generated numbers. Users can earn $NUMS tokens by participating in the game, with tokens issued via Starknet.

StarkWare initially announced the development of the SN Stack in July 2023, following similar announcements from competitors like Arbtirum's Orbit Stack and Optimism's OP Stack. The SN Stack went live in January 2024. Despite the existence of other layer-2 stacks and layer-3 games, the team behind Nums chose Starknet's technology due to its ability to support more computationally complex and ambitious applications, according to Tarrence van As, CEO of Cartridge, the main developer firm behind Nums.

Starknet's use of the Cairo programming language makes it easier to express these types of applications compared to Ethereum's Solidity, van As noted. Cartridge, one of the core developer teams building on Starknet, is known for releasing the Dojo framework, a tool engine that enables developers to build games and applications on the network.