The Starknet Foundation has announced an additional 50 million STRK allocation to its DeFi Spring program, according to details published on Monday.

DeFi Spring 2.0 is Starknet Foundation’s new commitment to growing the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem of Starknet, an Ethereum Layer-2 rollup ecosystem.

DeFi Spring 2.0 timeline

The new funds allocation comes after a successful first effort in which the Foundation allocated 40 million STRK to support DeFi projects. This new allocation brings the total amount earmarked for the program to 90 million STRK.

DeFi Spring 2.0 will run from July 1, 2024 to at least December 31, 2024.

Starknet Foundation is collaborating with OpenBlock Labs to ensure STRK distribution is fair and equitable across four categories of protocols: DEXs, borrow & lend, perps & options and a new “other” category that will feature “DeFi protocols that accept user deposits.”

Projects in the new category are also those that issue yield or returns to users.

Starknet’s ecosystem growth

The DeFi Spring program, launched in February this year, saw Starknet distributed 14.4 million STRK across 16 weeks, reaching over 106,000 users. Starknet says the program that aimed to grow the Layer 2 blockchain network’s DeFi ecosystem attracted 14 protocols.

According to today’s announcement, the initiative that ran over the past four months helped generate substantial economic activity within the L2 chain’s ecosystem.

Despite the difficult market conditions and network issues that the project faced after launching its STRK token, Starknet has witnessed a significant surge in total value locked (TVL).

Currently, the total value of assets held in Starknet smart contracts is $240 million. DeFiLlama data shows this has grown sharply from about $54 million in February when DeFi Spring launched.

Projects taking part in DeFi Spring include DEX protocol Ekubo, borrowing and lending platform Nostra and Starknet’s first AMM mySwap.