DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
Stellar Protocol 21 went live on June 18, 2024, introducing five Core Advancement Proposals including native secp256r1 verification for passkey support in smart contracts, alongside efficiency improvements for state archival and transaction costs.
Taurus, a digital asset infrastructure provider serving major financial institutions, has expanded its custody and tokenization platforms to the Stellar network, joining other major players like Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, and Circle in leveraging Stellar for real-world asset tokenization.
Alterscope, a Stellar Community Fund featured project, offers a comprehensive risk dashboard for the Soroban ecosystem to enhance DeFi transparency and risk management. It provides real-time risk overviews, customizable frameworks, and metrics across security, liquidity, community, and governance. Integration benefits dApps by boosting credibility, attracting liquidity providers, and promoting regulatory compliance.
Stellar's Protocol 21 upgrade activated on June 18, 2024, introducing five Core Advancement Proposals (CAPs) that enable passkey support for smart contracts, improve state archival, and reduce transaction costs through VM optimization and module caching.
Alterscope introduces a comprehensive risk dashboard for the Stellar Soroban ecosystem, recently funded by the Stellar Community Fund. It provides real-time risk metrics, transparency, and customizable frameworks to help liquidity providers assess protocols. Integration benefits dApps by enhancing credibility, attracting investments, and promoting a safer DeFi environment.
GYEN and ZUSD stablecoins are now available for trading on Bitstamp, a major regulated exchange founded in 2011. The listing enables users to easily convert between USD and these Stellar-based stablecoins with enhanced security and compliance features.
Veridise security analysts discovered a critical issue in Soroban's build-test-deploy process where the `createimport!` macro allows deployment of contracts with outdated or incorrect imported dependencies without requiring them to be listed as crate dependencies, potentially leading to broken contracts in production.
The Spacewalk bridge connects Stellar and Polkadot ecosystems, enabling Stellar users to access Polkadot's DeFi capabilities and Pendulum's fiat-DeFi infrastructure. This integration allows seamless asset transfers, forex DEX, yield farming with stablecoins, and cross-border payments. It expands opportunities for Stellar community in advanced blockchain applications.
Stellar is a leader in tokenized investment assets, enabling issuers to tokenize securities, commodities, and financial products like money market funds, ETFs, and bonds. The network offers benefits including cost reduction, operational efficiency, compliance controls, and fast 3-5 second transaction times.
Stellar's Protocol 21 upgrade, scheduled for a validator vote on June 18, 2024, introduces five Core Advancement Proposals including passkey signing support via secp256r1 verification, improved state archival functions, and three cost optimization CAPs for Soroban smart contracts.
The Stellar Development Foundation participated in the World Economic Forum 2024 in Davos, hosting and participating in multiple panels and workshops focused on blockchain's role in financial inclusion, tokenization, and global financial access. SDF leadership, including CEO Denelle Dixon and Chief Legal Officer Candace Kelly, engaged with governmental, financial, and tech organizations to advance discussions on sustainable and inclusive financial systems.
STOCKen CAPITAL has been awarded in Stellar Community Fund #24, marking a key milestone in integrating Soroban services. The funding enables enhancements in cryptocurrency payments via Stellar, smart contracts with Soroban, and oracle connections for secure legal processes. This advances their platform for capital acquisition and digital governance using blockchain.
A protocol on Stellar has deployed an airdrop of its governance token to early and super adopters, distributing 28.8 million out of 64 million total supply via claimable balances. Claim deadline is April 30, 2024, with unclaimed tokens returning to the DAO treasury. Future protocol fees will fund the DAO for community governance.
Runtime Verification completed an audit of Band Protocol's Rust implementation of the Band Standard Reference Soroban Smart Contract. This contract enables querying real-world asset prices from BandChain into the Stellar network's Soroban mainnet. The audit identified issues and informative findings, with a detailed report available.
The Stellar Development Foundation launched the Soroban Security Audit Bank, distributing up to $1M in audit credits from six top-tier firms to 20-30 high-priority projects building on Soroban to strengthen smart contract security across the ecosystem.
The Spacewalk Bridge is now live on the Pendulum network, enabling trust-minimized transfers of XLM and fiat-backed stablecoins like EURC, AUDD, NGNC, TZS, and BRL between Stellar and Polkadot ecosystems. Stellar users can trade XLM on Zenlink DEX and provide liquidity in pools such as XLM.s/PEN and XLM.s/DOT. Pendulum's Forex DEX powered by Nabla offers single-sided liquidity provision without impermanent loss, enhancing DeFi accessibility.
WisdomTree, a $100B+ asset manager, launched WisdomTree Prime, a unified financial platform built on Stellar that enables customers to seamlessly manage digital assets, traditional investments, and fiat currencies in one application. The platform leverages Stellar's native asset controls and tokenization capabilities to offer 13 digital funds and a gold token.
The Stellar Development Foundation submitted a response to the U.S. Treasury's Request for Information on Financial Inclusion, advocating for open-source blockchain technology and transparent systems to advance financial access. SDF emphasized the importance of free or low-cost digital financial services, smart contracts, and open data initiatives in creating inclusive financial systems.
A roundup of global crypto regulations, adoption trends, and developments, including UK stablecoin laws, Hong Kong licensing, and South Africa's embrace of stablecoins. Highlights mainstream adoption like Swiss Postfinance's crypto services and Web3 hurdles. Notably features the launch of smart contracts on the Stellar network, marking a new era for the blockchain.
Stellar Anchors serve as bridges between traditional finance and the Stellar blockchain, enabling fiat-to-digital asset exchanges, but face trust issues due to centralization. The new Anchor Transparency Node, powered by Log Store Network, provides verifiable transparency for off-chain transactions. This enhances trust, supports real-world assets, and fosters inter-business confidence in the Stellar ecosystem.
Dropzey is an innovative platform revolutionizing airdrops by simplifying creation and participation processes. It addresses inefficiencies through user-friendly tools, verification mechanisms, and transparency features. By integrating with Stellar and Soroban Smart Contracts, it enables automated and instant token distribution.
This article provides a comprehensive overview of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and its implementation on the Stellar blockchain. It explains DeFi's core components—including blockchain, smart contracts, DEXs, and liquidity pools—and highlights how Soroban, Stellar's native smart contracts platform, enables developers to build DeFi applications with access to real-world financial rails.
A comprehensive tutorial on migrating smart contracts from Ethereum's Solidity to Soroban's Rust SDK, comparing the two languages and providing step-by-step examples of building a 'Hello World' contract in both environments.
The Stellar Development Foundation has decided to disarm its validators and postpone the Protocol 20 upgrade scheduled for January 30, 2024, following ecosystem concerns about a discovered bug in Stellar Core v20.1.0 affecting fee bumps for Soroban transactions.
The Stellar Development Foundation organized the Workshop on Heterogeneous Trust in Distributed Systems (HTDS) in October, bringing together 30 researchers to explore consensus mechanisms where validators independently choose which peers to trust—a key feature of Stellar and other networks.