Deep Dive
1. Post-Upgrade Instability (Bearish Impact)
Overview: Starknet's Sept 2 Grinta upgrade caused a 2-hour outage and chain reorganization, erasing transactions from blocks 1,960,612–1,960,649 (Blockworks). While service resumed, the incident raised concerns about network maturity.
What this means:
- Operational hiccups during major upgrades often trigger short-term selloffs
- Validator confidence dipped – 420M STRK remains staked (11% of supply), but no growth since July
Key metric: Monitor Starknet status page for sequencer uptime.
2. Bitcoin Staking Dynamics (Mixed Impact)
Overview: SNIP-31 enabled BTC staking (25% consensus power) on Sept 15, initially boosting STRK 7%. However, rewards for BTC stakers begin Sept 30, creating uncertainty.
What this means:
- Bullish: Attracts Bitcoin liquidity ($155M TVL inflow post-launch)
- Bearish: STRK’s governance share diluted from 100% → 75%, creating sell pressure from holders hedging dilution risk
Data point: 4.2B STRK staked vs 1.04B BTC-equivalent staked (Starknet announcement)
3. Technical Weakness (Bearish)
Overview: STRK trades below critical levels:
- $0.127 (30-day SMA) – 4.2% below
- $0.137 (200-day EMA) – 12.3% below
RSI-14 at 44.91 shows no oversold signal, while MACD histogram (-0.001439) confirms bearish momentum.
Historical pattern: STRK has failed 6/8 tests of $0.13 resistance since August.
Conclusion
STRK faces triple pressure from technical resistance, staking dilution concerns, and credibility tests after the Grinta incident. The 24h resilience (+0.65%) suggests markets are pricing in the Sept 30 BTC staking rewards launch, but sustained recovery needs clean network ops and DeFi TVL growth.
Key watch: Can STRK hold $0.1125 Fibonacci support if BTC staking inflows disappoint?