Stellar Ecosystem
News

The Stellar Development Foundation disclosed a bug in Stellar Core v20.1.0 affecting fee-bumped Soroban transactions, where refunds are incorrectly sent to the sponsored account instead of the sponsor. SDF decided to proceed with the Protocol 20 upgrade vote on January 30 as planned, citing low risk during early Soroban phases and the availability of mitigation best practices.

An educational deep-dive into Stellar's Proof-of-Agreement (PoA) consensus algorithm, explaining how it differs from Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake through relatable examples of quorums, slices, and topens.

Blend, a permissionless on-chain lending protocol, has launched on Stellar Testnet. Users can now test lending, borrowing, and backstopping features using browser wallets like Freighter. The protocol offers high capital efficiency, flexible pools, and risk mitigations for the Stellar DeFi ecosystem.

Aquarius announces updates and 2024 plans for building AMMs on Stellar using Soroban smart contracts. They've developed CPMM and StableSwap models inspired by Uniswap and Curve, with AQUA rewards for liquidity providers. A new UI and integrations are planned post-Soroban mainnet launch on January 30, 2024.

The Stellar Development Foundation released a comprehensive paper titled 'The Case for Open Systems: Creating an Interoperable, Integrated World,' exploring the historical context, principles, and real-world applications of open systems in fostering innovation and equitable technology access.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced Protocol 20, which brings Soroban smart contracts to Stellar. The network will adopt a phased rollout approach to gradually increase smart contract capacity while monitoring network stability and performance.

Obsrvr provides blockchain infrastructure solutions tailored for the Stellar.org network and Soroban smart contracts platform. Their offerings include the Obsrvr Gateway, a managed service combining Horizon API and Soroban RPC servers, and Obsrvr Nodes for customizable, dedicated instances. These tools simplify blockchain adoption, enhance security, and enable businesses to integrate seamlessly with Stellar.

The Stellar Development Foundation published 'A Practical Framework for Decentralization,' a policy paper that provides a structured approach for evaluating and measuring decentralization in blockchain networks. The framework addresses how policymakers and regulators can assess decentralization across network structure, failure resistance, and decision-making processes.

Range partners with Oak Security to deliver end-to-end security for Cosmos projects, extending audits into continuous monitoring. This addresses limitations like dynamic codebases and third-party risks. Range, trusted by Stellar among others, provides customized real-time security tools.

Range CEO Andres Monteoliva spoke at the Modular Summit on security advantages of app-specific roll-ups over monolithic blockchains. Range provides intelligence and risk platforms for cross-chain stablecoin infrastructure, trusted by Stellar, Solana Foundation, Circle, and others. Their tools include Faraday for transaction routing and compliance, and a Stablecoin Explorer tracking nearly 200 stablecoins.

The Stellar Development Foundation submitted a comprehensive response to the French financial regulator AMF's DeFi discussion paper, advocating for regulatory frameworks that balance innovation with consumer protection through open source technology and decentralization principles.

Range CEO Andres Monteoliva discusses mitigative measures for blockchain bridge exploits at the DeFi Security Summit. The talk covers types of bridges and security mechanisms like rate limits and circuit breakers. Range, trusted by Stellar and others, provides cross-chain stablecoin infrastructure with compliance and risk tools.

The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q3 2023 report highlighting major progress on its roadmap, including Soroban's advancement toward Mainnet launch, security partnerships with Certora, enhancements to the Anchor Platform and Wallet SDK, and significant ecosystem milestones like Circle's EURC stablecoin launch and MoneyGram's planned wallet integration.

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.

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.

Stellar Development Foundation partners with Certora to conduct security audits for Soroban, its upcoming WebAssembly-based smart contracts platform. The formal verification tools will provide continuous integration security checks as the platform approaches mainnet launch in early 2025.

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.

The article explores the evolution of identity authentication from paper documents to Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs), emphasizing self-sovereign identity on blockchain. It highlights benefits like ownership, privacy, interoperability, and real-world applications in government, refugees, finance, and more. It teases upcoming content on implementing DIDs on the Stellar network.

Stablecoins are revolutionizing global payments and remittances by offering low fees, fast transactions, and stability pegged to fiat currencies like the USD. USDC and USDT, available on blockchains including Stellar, provide secure, 24/7 cross-border transfers. The article explores their advantages, top stablecoins, non-USD options like EUROC, and future potential with CBDCs.

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.

This educational article explains blockchain oracles as bridges between smart contracts and real-world data, covering their types, decentralization levels, and the oracle problem. It highlights oracle use cases in DeFi and mentions Soroban as Stellar's native smart contracts platform.

The Stellar Development Foundation partnered with PwC US to create a framework for assessing blockchain protocols' electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The guide addresses CBDCs' potential for financial inclusion, interoperability, and sustainability on open networks.

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.

This article explains the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a Proof-of-Agreement mechanism that enables Stellar to achieve fast, energy-efficient consensus without mining. It compares SCP to other consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake, and details how Stellar's transparent, node-based validation process works.

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.