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Why Build on Status Network

There are dozens of L2s to choose from. Here's why Status Network is worth your attention.

Dev Funding
Status Network

Continuous revenue pool that scales with your app's traction

Typical L2

One-time grants you re-apply for every few months

Gas for Users
Status Network

Free with Karma β€” no paymaster, no relayer, no account abstraction setup

Typical L2

Users pay gas, or devs run paymaster + relayer infrastructure

User Reputation
Status Network

Network-wide reputation system through Karma β€” spam resistance, trust signals, feature gating

Typical L2

None β€” build your own or integrate third-party solutions

Privacy
Status Network

Native ZK-based tooling β€” Rate Limiting Nullifiers and more

Typical L2

Third-party integrations

Sustainable Public Funding​

Status Network doesn't rely on one-time grants or foundation treasuries. Instead, it has a continuous public funding pool fed by:

  • Native yield from bridged yield-bearing assets (initially ETH and stablecoins)
  • DEX fees from the native decentralized exchange
  • Premium gas fees from deny-listed users
  • Future native app fees (lending, NFT, launchpad, etc.)

Read more β†’ Economic Model

Karma holders vote on how this public funding pool is distributed to apps and builders. The more your app contributes to the network by generating activity and transaction volume, the more Karma you and your users earn, and the more influence you have over future allocations.

What this means for builders:

  • Not just a one-time grant you have to re-apply for every few months, but a recurring revenue stream
  • Funding scales with your app's traction β€” more users, more Karma, more incentives for you
  • Community-governed allocation, no foundation gatekeeping

Read more β†’ Public Funding

Gasless by Default​

On most chains, "gasless" means setting up a paymaster, running a relayer, or integrating an account abstraction SDK. On Status Network, gasless is the default behavior.

Every address with a positive Karma balance gets a free transaction quota. No paymasters. No relayers. No special wallet configuration. Your app just works without gas fees for eligible users.

What this means for builders:

  • No UX friction from gas. Your onboarding funnel doesn't lose users at the "bridge some ETH for gas" step
  • No need to integrate ERC-4337, meta-transactions, or gas relay patterns
  • No infrastructure cost for sponsoring gas on behalf of users

The gasless system is enforced at the sequencer level via Rate Limiting Nullifiers (RLN), a zero-knowledge spam prevention mechanism.

Built-in Reputation with Karma​

Karma is a soulbound (non-transferable) token that every user earns through genuine network participation such as staking, bridging, providing liquidity, using apps, or paying premium gas. It cannot be bought or transferred.

What this means for builders:

  • Trust signal: High-Karma users are verified active participants, not airdrop farmers or sybils
  • Feature gating: Builders could gate their features such as premium features, priority access, or better rates based on user Karma tiers
  • Spam resistance: The network itself is gating spams with RLN mechanism and Karma tiers directly control gasless transaction quotas, meaning high-Karma users are inherently less likely to spam
  • No cold start problem: Your app benefits from reputation built network-wide in the ecosystem

Read more β†’ Karmic Tokenomics

Privacy Focused Civil Goods​

Status Network is built with technology from the Institute of Free Technology (IFT). Most notably, the gasless transaction system uses RLN (Rate Limiting Nullifiers), a zero-knowledge spam prevention mechanism developed by Vac, an IFT research division.

We align with IFT's vision in technology to build public goods to safegauard civil liberties in the digital age. Status Network will add on privacy focused modules leveraging our gaslessness.

Full EVM Equivalence​

Status Network is built on the Linea zkEVM stack. This means builders can:

  • Deploy existing Solidity contracts without modification
  • Use standard Ethereum tooling like Hardhat, Foundry, ethers.js, viem, etc.
  • use standard JSON-RPC methods (except for some methods related to gas fee. Refer to JSON-RPC API for more information.)
  • Zero-knowledge proof-based security inherited from Linea's rollup architecture

No custom VM. No non-standard opcodes. No rewriting your contracts or backends.