Stellar Ecosystem
News

The Stellar Development Foundation converted its $550,000 Series A pledge to SatoshiPay into a loan after the coronavirus pandemic derailed the funding round, providing the micropayments firm with 12 months of runway while it develops new B2B solutions.

Stellar Development Foundation aims to become the global payments standard within 5 years, with CEO Denelle Dixon highlighting CBDCs as a key opportunity. The foundation is pursuing government adoption of CBDCs on Stellar's network, though founder Jed McCaleb acknowledges this remains early-stage. Protocol 13 and Horizon 1.0 upgrades are planned for June.

Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb stated at Consensus: Distributed that no crypto projects are currently making a real difference in people's lives beyond speculation. He argued crypto startups should focus on building useful products rather than bank partnerships and business development deals.

SEP-29 enables exchanges and wallets to solve the "forgotten memo" problem on Stellar. Exchanges can now require memos by setting a simple data entry flag, while wallets upgraded to the latest SDK will automatically prevent memo-less payments to those addresses.

SDF hosted a webinar featuring Cowrie Integrated Systems, a Nigerian fintech company using Stellar to enable low-cost, instant payments into and out of Nigerian bank accounts via their NGNT stablecoin and anchor integration.

Crypto.com added XLM to its Crypto Earn product, offering users up to 8% annual returns on Stellar deposits with weekly payouts and flexible terms.

The Stellar Winter Roundup 2019 recaps key achievements and events from December through October, including ecosystem expansion, the Meridian conference, lumen distribution updates, and new partnerships. Highlights feature SDF's new mandate, Horizon and Core releases, Stellar Community Fund voting, and integrations like Travala.com and BitGo support for XLM. It also announces new hires and job opportunities at SDF.

Stellar has been running its own Lightning Torch since June 2019, a community experiment that passes XLM around the world to demonstrate the blockchain's base-layer transaction efficiency. The torch, initiated by Wouter Arkink, has covered nearly 500,000 kilometers with zero transaction fees and introduced challenges like claiming countries and recruiting famous participants.

StellarTerm is an open-source trading client for the Stellar Decentralized Exchange (SDEX) with local key storage for enhanced security. It offers instant login via secret key, Ledger hardware wallet support, multisig accounts, and advanced trading features like real-time charts and notifications. Desktop apps are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Interstellar v4.0 (Voyager Update) released with major wallet improvements. New All-Spark feature enables asset transfers without trustlines or funded accounts. Comprehensive SEP6/24/10 anchor integration lets users deposit and withdraw directly in-app. Adds 11 new languages and enhanced security.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced a major restructuring at the Meridian event in Mexico City, burning 55 billion XLM to reduce total supply to 50 billion. They ended large giveaway programs and redirected remaining lumens to core development, ecosystem support, use-case investments, and targeted user acquisition. This new mandate focuses SDF on making Stellar the global payments standard through efficient, transparent spending.

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.

Stellar has released Horizon v0.22.1 with support for Stellar-core v12.0.0 and Protocol 12. This update introduces path_payment_strict_send offers and disables the inflation mechanism. Users are urged to update their software ahead of the public network upgrade vote on October 28, 2019.

Stellar-core v12.0.0 and Horizon v0.21.0 have been released with significant protocol upgrades. The core release implements three Core Advancement Proposals including PATH_PAYMENT_STRICT_SEND, bucket list optimizations, and inflation mechanism disabling, with a validator vote scheduled for October 28th.

Coinbase has enabled Stellar Lumens (XLM) and Chainlink (LINK) trading for New York residents, months after launching these assets in other jurisdictions. XLM launched on Coinbase in March, LINK in June; New York's regulatory requirements delayed availability in the state.

Mike Kennedy, creator of Zelle, became CEO of Interstellar, a Stellar-based blockchain payment platform competing with Ripple and Swift. Interstellar is crypto-agnostic and aims to enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments for banks without correspondent banking networks.

Stellar Development Foundation and Keybase announced a 2 billion XLM airdrop worth roughly $120 million, distributing 100 million XLM monthly to Keybase's 300,000 active users over 20 months. The partnership aims to introduce cryptocurrency to non-crypto-native users through an existing messaging platform.

The Stellar Development Foundation met with U.S. policymakers and regulators in Washington, DC to discuss blockchain regulation and the Stellar Network. SDF emphasized distinguishing between base protocols (which should remain unregulated) and applications built on top (which should follow existing compliance standards) to enable innovation while protecting consumers.

Binance will airdrop 9.5 million XLM to users and introduce staking rewards after discovering it had been staking customer Lumens since August 2018 without sharing the rewards.

Stellar Development Foundation's new leadership outlines five strategic priorities: achieving financial inclusion through technology focus, building products that prove Stellar's value, engaging on policy matters, and increasing communication. SDF is launching a dollar savings app for Latin America and hosting its first Meridian conference in Mexico City.

Stellar is hosting its first-ever conference, Stellar Meridian, in Mexico City on November 4-5. The event will focus on financial inclusion, payments innovation, and the protocol's role in shaping the future of global finance.

Crypto.com listed Stellar Lumens (XLM) on its Wallet & Card App, enabling users to purchase XLM fee-free via credit card or bank transfer and spend it globally through the MCO Visa Card at 40+ million merchants.

IBM's global blockchain head Jesse Lund has departed the company. Lund led IBM's Stellar-based World Wire payment network, which connected six banks across 72 countries. Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb said the departure won't impact the platform.

Gab CEO Andrew Torba announced plans to fork Keybase and replace its Stellar wallet integration with Bitcoin Lightning Network, positioning the move as part of Gab's broader strategy to fork open-source projects and remove what he calls 'shitcoins' in favor of Bitcoin.