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 has achieved a 9x speedup in Horizon reingestion by leveraging the Composable Data Platform (CDP) with precomputed ledger metadata, reducing full history reingestion from approximately 66 days to 7 days.
The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q3 2024 report highlighting major ecosystem milestones including 9 million network addresses, $5M+ in Enterprise and Matching Fund investments, and the launch of Stellar Community Fund 6.0. Key achievements include Franklin Templeton's Benji platform reaching $450M in supply, Protocol 22 development nearing completion, and expanded ecosystem integrations with Dune and DefiLlama.
Protocol 22 is coming to Stellar Testnet on November 12 and will go to Mainnet validator vote on December 5. The upgrade introduces constructors for Soroban contracts (CAP-0058) and BLS12-381 cryptographic host functions (CAP-0059), enabling more efficient smart contracts and advanced privacy features like zk-SNARKs.
Balanced Network's Q3 2024 update details progress on cross-chain expansions including audits and deployments on Stellar, Solana, and Sui. Key achievements include launching cross-chain loans, a soft liquidation model, and new collateral types. Upcoming Q4 plans feature full Stellar launch alongside intent-based trading and more blockchain integrations.
CoinFabrik shares insights from three major crypto conferences: Permissionless III highlighted Web3 marketing's growing importance, Meridian 2024 showcased Scout's positive reception in the Stellar ecosystem, and Avalanche Summit LATAM featured CyScout, their new CodeQL-based security tool for Solidity developers.
SorobanDomains introduces a new Key-Value storage contract on Stellar's Soroban platform, acting as a 'localstorage' for domains. It enables storing additional values like SEP-01 TOML file locations or IPFS CIDs for dApps. The contract is live on mainnet with a $PSD 100 registration fee.
zkCross Network announces Super Accounts on Stellar, powered by their Chain Abstraction Layer, enabling seamless 1-click cross-chain DeFi transactions without bridging or gas management. This integrates zkCrossDEX with Stellar's Soroban blockchain, supported by a Stellar Community Fund grant. The phased roadmap includes AMM DEX, staking, launchpad, and perpetuals trading.
Dfns ships Givre, an optimized FROST threshold signature library for distributed cryptographic systems. The open-source implementation outperforms existing Rust threshold EdDSA implementations and supports Bitcoin BIP340, Stellar, Soroban, Solana, and Tezos. Now maintained by Lockness under the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.
Hubble's Stellar ETL has been refactored to use the Composable Data Platform (CDP), replacing Captive Core with Galexie and a Ledger Metadata Store. This architectural change delivers 93% faster processing, 90% cost reduction, and significantly simplified maintenance.
Tansu integrates stellar.expert's contract validation mechanism to ensure its on-chain contract matches the source code repository. This uses GitHub actions and SLSA attestations for supply-chain security. The feature verifies contract provenance on the Stellar blockchain explorer.
Axelar announced its Mobius Development Stack, a new interoperability platform enabling permissionless cross-chain connections at scale. The Interchain Amplifier lets developers spin up connections to any blockchain—including Stellar—using AXL-incentivized validators, while the Interchain Token Service eliminates bridge fragmentation for cross-chain tokens.
The Stellar Development Foundation has launched an all-new Stellar Lab, a modernized web-based toolkit for developers to create accounts, test transactions, explore RPC methods and Horizon endpoints, and interact with the Stellar network. The redesigned interface includes mobile optimization, XDR-to-JSON conversion support, and the ability to save and share API requests.
Tansu, a Stellar dApp, introduces an on-chain 'Support' button for funding open source projects directly via Soroban Domains. This creates transparent, costless, and borderless funding using Stellar addresses and smart contracts. Future developments include DAO-based fund management through the SCF Build program.
Stellar Development Foundation hosted a blockchain workshop on decentralized finance and smart contracts at Universidad San Sebastián in Santiago. Co-organized with PaltaLabs and regional community initiatives including Tellus Cooperative and Campus on Chain, the event covered Soroban's unique features and demonstrated practical smart contract creation and real-world DeFi use cases.
Mercury has released Retroshades, a smart contract indexing technology designed specifically for Soroban-supporting chains. Retroshades allows developers to build custom indexers in minutes by defining data structures directly within smart contracts, eliminating the need to learn new technologies or manage complex infrastructure.
Tansu project announces submission for SCF Build award, outlining plans for a decentralized platform with DAOs for project management and reputation badges for contributors. The proposal includes on-chain release processes, fund allocation via wallets and potential Quadratic Funding, and a detailed roadmap across MVP, Testnet, and Mainnet phases. Emphasis is placed on community governance, transparency, and open-source sustainability within the Stellar ecosystem.
Runtime Verification introduces Komet, a formal verification and fuzzing tool for Soroban smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain, funded by the Stellar Community Fund. The tool aims to enhance smart contract security through mathematical guarantees against vulnerabilities. The team seeks continued community support to expand its capabilities.
Tansu, a Soroban-based versioning dApp, launches v1 on Stellar testnet, allowing project registration and on-chain Git history tracking. It completes SCF28 activation award deliverables, including smart contracts with Soroban Domains support and open-source tooling. The team thanks the Stellar community and eyes a Build award next.
Stellar has partnered with Hypernative to adopt its real-time threat detection and response platform to protect the network and projects building on it from hacks and security threats.
zkCross Network announces its oversubscribed seed and strategic funding rounds, backed by investors including Stellar, ahead of a $2.6M public sale. The project offers chain abstraction infrastructure to simplify cross-chain DeFi with features like messaging systems, liquidity aggregation, and decentralized protocols. A detailed roadmap outlines expansion across blockchains, targeting massive user growth.
The Stellar Development Foundation introduced Galexie, the first component of the Composable Data Platform, a lightweight application that extracts and stores Stellar ledger data in cloud-based data lakes. Galexie decouples data extraction from transformation, enabling tools like Horizon and Hubble to access precomputed transaction metadata more efficiently than relying on Captive Core.
xyclooLabs announces new community indexes and dashboards functionality for Mercury, their data platform for Stellar developers. The update includes improvements to the zephyr-sdk with DashboardBuilder, backend infrastructure for creating and discovering indexes/dashboards, and a community section in the Mercury webapp.
The Stellar Development Foundation introduces the Composable Data Platform (CDP), a new open-source architecture that decentralizes data access on Stellar by breaking down monolithic tools like Horizon and Hubble into modular, configurable components. CDP enables developers to customize their data consumption patterns and infrastructure based on specific application needs.
Phoenix DeFi Hub has launched on Stellar's Soroban smart contract platform, starting with a decentralized exchange in May and planning an NFT marketplace and additional protocols. The platform aims to be a comprehensive DeFi solution leveraging Stellar's on/off-ramp infrastructure and stablecoin ecosystem.
PaltaLabs and Soroswap hosted an educational event at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on August 8, 2024, bringing together 50+ entrepreneurs and developers to explore blockchain, DeFi, and smart contracts on Stellar. The event featured presentations on Soroswap's decentralized exchange, USDC integration, regulatory considerations, and networking opportunities.