DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
The Stellar Development Foundation announced the winners of Sorobanathon: Road to Mainnet, a month-long virtual hackathon held September-October 2023. Four projects were awarded: Cowchain Farm (gaming), Divify (expense management), Kwickbit & Paltalabs (compliance), and Soro-Shark (tokenization), with SDF planning additional hackathons for 2024.
This article explores the history and advantages of asset tokenization on the Stellar network, highlighting how institutions like Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, and the Bank for International Settlements leverage Stellar's native asset control features for issuing securities, money market funds, and bonds with operational efficiency, transparency, and sustainability benefits.
Cheesecake Labs has released an updated Stellar Asset Sandbox with new features including role-based access control, expanded token management, custodial solutions, and treasury management capabilities. The no-code platform enables institutions to test asset tokenization on Stellar's testnet before deploying real assets.
Owny is a white-label platform that leverages Stellar blockchain and AI to streamline private equity fund management, capital raising, and investor relations. The platform tokenizes assets on Stellar, enabling fast, low-cost cross-border payments and simplified compliance for alternative asset marketplaces.
Franklin Templeton's $300M tokenized money market fund (FOBXX), primarily issued on Stellar, is expanding to multiple blockchains including Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, and Arbitrum. The fund has seen limited adoption on Polygon with only $2M in balance so far.
An educational overview of blockchain fundamentals, explaining how distributed ledgers work, their advantages over centralized databases, and comparisons of major blockchain platforms including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stellar.
This article explains what anchors are on the Stellar network—organizations that bridge traditional banking systems to Stellar, enabling users to exchange fiat currency for digital assets. It covers anchor types, benefits, and how to become one through the Anchor Platform.
Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, which uses Stellar blockchain for record-keeping, now has over $290 million in assets under management. The firm is exploring blockchain's potential to transform capital markets through tokenization and smart contracts.
An overview of the Stellar network, its foundation, and thriving ecosystem. The article explains Stellar's blockchain technology, the Stellar Development Foundation's role in supporting growth, and highlights real-world applications across various sectors.
The Stellar Newsletter highlights Q1 achievements including Franklin Templeton's OnChain Fund surpassing $270M AUM on Stellar blockchain, SDF's strategic progress, and new board member Asiff Hirji. It covers partnerships like Arf, Cebuana Lhuillier, and blockchain remittances, plus Soroban smart contracts developments and community spotlights. Upcoming Meridian 2023 in Madrid is announced.
Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, built on Stellar, has surpassed $270 million in assets under management. It is the first U.S. registered fund to use a public blockchain for recording transactions and shareholdings.
Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use Stellar blockchain for transactions and share ownership, surpassed $270 million AUM. The fund is accessible via the Benji Investments app and represents a major institutional adoption of blockchain technology in traditional finance.
WisdomTree gained SEC approval for nine blockchain-enabled funds that maintain secondary ownership records on Stellar and Ethereum blockchains. The funds, which invest in US Treasurys, equities, and other traditional assets, will launch on WisdomTree Prime mobile app next quarter.
The Stellar Newsletter highlights recent ecosystem developments including Soroban smart contracts live on Futurenet with a $100M developer fund and Sorobanathon. It covers Meridian 2022 on-demand sessions, Stellar Quest Live Series 5, bridge bounty grants, and the new Anchor Platform. Additional updates include stablecoin launches, SDF investments in NetXD and Wave, and community fund discussions.
The Blue Marble, a Stellar-based NFT marketplace, enables carbon removal investments through blockchain technology. Founded by Task.io creators, it helps brands and investors fund environmental projects like biochar production while supporting smallholder farmers in developing countries with transparent, low-cost transactions.
Task.io, a mobile app built on Stellar, partners with Biochar Life to incentivize smallholder farmers in developing countries to produce biochar instead of burning agricultural waste. For each metric ton of carbon sequestered, one STS token is minted on Stellar and sold to carbon offset buyers, with proceeds funding farmer communities.
Stellar Protocol 17 introduced asset clawback functionality, enabling authorized entities to recover digital securities for regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, and lost key recovery. Co-authored by Securrency, this feature addresses institutional adoption concerns and regulatory requirements for custodying digital assets.
Project Venus is a DeFi protocol on Stellar using Turing Signing Servers (TSS) to enable trustless smart contracts without an on-chain VM. It implements short-term FX forwards to improve capital efficiency for Stellar-based financial institutions like remittance companies. TSS leverages off-chain servers (turrets) combined with Stellar's multi-sig for efficient DeFi.
The Stellar public network successfully upgraded to Protocol 17 on June 1, 2021, introducing Asset Clawback—a feature enabling businesses to issue regulated financial instruments like bonds and equities while maintaining compliance capabilities.
Stellar Protocol 17 introduces asset clawback, enabling regulated financial instruments like bonds and equities to comply with securities regulations requiring issuer revocation abilities. Validators will vote on the upgrade June 1, 2021.
Two Stellar Community Fund finalists, Mojoflower and Blocknify, showcase innovative use cases beyond payments: Mojoflower tokenizes share ownership for Icelandic regulators, while Blocknify uses Stellar as an immutable notary for e-signatures and document verification.
The article contrasts traditional payment apps like Venmo with Stellar's blockchain for low-cost, borderless remittances. It highlights Stellar's negligible transaction fees, decentralized exchange for fair rates, and adoption by Franklin Templeton. The author, a self-described no-coiner, expresses optimism about cryptocurrency's potential to empower the unbanked.
Stellar community will vote on Protocol 13, a network upgrade enabling exchanges and asset issuers to enforce fine-grained control over regulated asset trading, including preventing unauthorized purchases while preserving existing orders and supporting security token compliance.
The Stellar Monthly Roundup for September 2019 covers ecosystem updates including collaborations, AMAs, new hires at SDF, developer releases, community fund proposals, and ecosystem projects like Cowrie Systems and Bitbond. Highlights include the upcoming Meridian conference in Mexico City and a proposal to disable inflation. New features on stellarbeat.io and protocol upgrades prepare the network for future improvements.
Franklin Templeton filed with the SEC to launch a blockchain-based mutual fund for government securities, recording fund share ownership on the Stellar blockchain to improve transparency and reduce settlement times while keeping investor mechanics hidden.
Franklin Templeton filed an SEC prospectus for a tokenized government money market fund on Stellar, investing 99.5% in government securities and cash. The $700B asset manager will launch a mobile app for purchasing and redeeming shares as native digital assets on the Stellar blockchain.
Stellar's 2018 roadmap focuses on two main goals: launching SDEX, a world-class decentralized exchange front-end for on-chain token trading, and integrating the Lightning Network to improve scalability and privacy. The foundation also plans ecosystem improvements including better documentation and developer tools.