Stellar Ecosystem
News

RPCiege: Siege 5, Space Continuum launches December 4th with four Soroban smart contract challenges focused on state archival. Players can earn NFT cards and XLM rewards (up to 500 XLM for first place on each skirmish).

Australian crypto companies Upside and Stables announce a partnership to deliver Web3 education, events, and content, while providing Stables a Melbourne base at Upside HQ. Stables offers a digital wallet for spending, sending, and earning stablecoins, aiding businesses with treasury and payroll. The collaboration aims to boost crypto adoption in Australia.

The Stellar Disbursement Platform (SDP), integrated with Beans, enables businesses and organizations to send thousands of cross-border payments instantly via the Stellar ledger. It supports payroll, micro-payments, and humanitarian aid with user-friendly features like dynamic links for recipients without blockchain experience. Beans offers versatile withdrawals in cash, bank transfers, or crypto across 180+ countries.

Decaf, a non-custodial wallet built on Stellar, is empowering Latin Americans with seamless fiat-to-crypto on and off-ramps through MoneyGram integration. The article showcases real-world impact in San Francisco, Colombia, where the platform enables financial inclusion for unbanked populations.

The Stellar Development Foundation joined the CALP Network as its first Layer 1 blockchain member, advancing humanitarian cash and voucher assistance programs. SDF's Stellar Aid Assist platform, powered by the Stellar Disbursement Platform, enables rapid, low-cost digital payments to crisis-affected populations worldwide.

The Stellar Development Foundation highlights five outstanding submissions from the Sorobounty Spectacular program, a content bounty initiative that encouraged developers to build Soroban dapps with educational tutorials. Featured projects include a regulated assets dapp, a snooker game, a farming game, a payment streaming app, and a Bitcoin price oracle.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced updates to the Stellar Disbursement Platform (SDP), an open-source tool for bulk payments that now supports supplier payouts, global payroll, government transfers, and enterprise remittances. The platform features self-hosting, on-demand wallet creation, multi-level access controls, and support for any Stellar-based digital asset.

Beans App and Boss Money wallet have integrated with the Stellar Disbursement Platform, enabling global bulk payments and financial access across 185+ countries and 10+ African nations respectively.

Meridian 2023, the annual Stellar conference held in Madrid, showcased major ecosystem developments including MoneyGram's non-custodial wallet launch, Circle's EURC stablecoin deployment, and significant upgrades to developer tools like the Anchor Platform and Stellar Disbursement Platform.

Qolaq opens final beta testing for its community-driven health insurance platform on Stellar. Users can enroll in Critical Illness or Life programs with QLQ tokens, participate in community voting on claims, and access full wallet functionality. Beta participants earn rewards in XLM and USDC.

MoneyGram plans to launch a noncustodial cryptocurrency wallet on Stellar in Q1 2024, offering zero fees until June 2024. The wallet will leverage MoneyGram's 350,000 global payment locations for fiat on- and off-ramps, enabling USDC transfers and cash conversions across 180+ countries.

The Stellar Anchor Platform now supports two on and off-ramp standards, enabling businesses to integrate cross-border payments and fiat-to-digital asset exchange on Stellar. Companies like Banxa and Flutterwave are already using the platform to expand their payment services across regions.

Beans, a non-custodial payments app on Stellar, announced major updates including a redesigned UI, support for Nigerian Naira and USD bank deposits/withdrawals via new partners Link and Kado, an in-app QR scanner, and a new support page. The app has doubled its user base over three consecutive months.

Soroban has achieved feature completeness after a year of public development through 10 preview releases, with over 70 ecosystem projects now building in parallel. The platform is closing in on a stable release candidate with a renewed focus on developer experience, tooling, and documentation.

The Stellar Development Foundation is accepting applications for its Female Founders Matching Fund, which provides $200K–$500K investments to female-led projects building on Stellar. Applicants must submit detailed information about their project, fundraising status, and planned Stellar integration.

A comprehensive guide to Stellar wallets covering types, features, and best practices for storing and sending lumens. The article explains wallet functionality, custodial vs. non-custodial options, and answers common questions about wallet usage and security.

UNHCR and the UN's technology provider UNICC are piloting Stellar Aid Assist, a blockchain-based cash disbursement solution using the Stellar network and USDC stablecoin to deliver humanitarian aid directly to displaced persons in Ukraine. The program enables instant bulk transfers, eliminates banking requirements, and provides full transaction traceability.

An educational guide explaining how stablecoins work, their benefits on the Stellar network, and use cases. The article highlights Stellar's advantages for stablecoin issuance including speed, low costs, compliance features, and lists major stablecoins like USDC, EURC, GYEN, ZUSD, and AUDD available on the network.

This article outlines the essential building blocks required for a thriving smart contract ecosystem on Soroban, including financial protocols (AMMs, lending markets), data access tools (oracles, indexers), user interfaces (wallets, block explorers), and security mechanisms. It demonstrates how these interconnected components enable real-world DeFi use cases like decentralized lending.

GetPaid is a Stellar-powered marketplace connecting African digital professionals with global companies, enabling cross-border payments in multiple currencies with fast settlement and low fees. The platform leverages Stellar's Anchor platform and SEP standards to provide accessible financial services to freelancers, creators, and traders in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

Fonbnk is a fintech platform that enables financial inclusion in emerging markets by converting prepaid mobile airtime into USDC on the Stellar network, providing seamless on and off-ramps for cash-based economies across Sub-Saharan Africa.