Stellar Ecosystem
News

SendIt is a user-friendly wallet built on the Stellar blockchain that enables sending and receiving payments via email addresses, eliminating the need for public keys or technical blockchain knowledge. It supports stablecoins, XLM, and asset swaps like USD to NGN for instant cross-border transfers via Stellar anchors. The testnet is live, with mainnet launch planned in two months to drive mass adoption and financial inclusion.

Lettuce Pay, a Stellar Community Fund grantee, surveyed 130 U.S. small business owners on cryptocurrency payment acceptance. Key findings: 30% have been asked to accept crypto, 75% would if it instantly settled to USD, and two-thirds believe crypto will become mainstream in five years. The company is building a product to let merchants accept crypto while dealing only with USD.

Stellar ecosystem leaders debate custodial vs. non-custodial key management approaches in a roundtable discussion, exploring how CAP-27 and SEP-30 support different solutions and which the SDF should prioritize for financial inclusion and adoption.

The article recounts the origin of Stellarscam.report, created to combat 'memo-phishing' scams on the Stellar Network where scammers send malicious memos with tiny XLM amounts to trick users into revealing secret keys. The author, frustrated by repeated scam reports on r/Stellar, developed a bot in mid-May 2020 to automatically send warning transactions to victims. Monthly stats show the bot countered tens of thousands of scam transactions, highlighting ongoing community efforts against persistent fraud.

Denelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development Foundation, spoke at the IMF World Bank Annual Meetings on a panel about cross-border payments, emphasizing that private sector innovation must prioritize use cases, interoperability, and developer-friendly technology to enable financial inclusion through permissionless networks.

Velo Labs, a Stellar-based fintech platform, announced a partnership with Terra to build a next-generation payment system. The team has also partnered with Band Protocol for FX data oracles and Matrixport Cactus for custodial services, advancing its federated credit exchange network for Southeast Asian remittances.

Stellar is skipping Protocol 14 and upgrading the public network to Protocol 15 on November 23, 2020. The change addresses a rare bug discovered during testnet testing that could have caused validator crashes. Developers running Stellar Core or Horizon must install updated versions before the upgrade.

Stellar CEO Denelle Dixon will speak on a panel at the IMF's annual meeting about the private sector's role in cross-border payments, alongside leaders from eCurrency, Mastercard, and Celo. The panel will be webcast on October 19.

Circle announced USDC stablecoin integration with Stellar blockchain starting Q1 2021, triggering a 10% price surge in XLM to $0.08 and doubling trading volumes. USDC becomes Stellar's first major USD-pegged stablecoin.

Circle announced USDC stablecoin support for Stellar blockchain by Q1 2021, making Stellar the third network to support USDC after Ethereum and Algorand. The move expands Circle's multi-chain strategy and enables Stellar developers to build financial inclusion solutions.

SDF board members discuss strategies for achieving network effects in blockchain, emphasizing the importance of critical mass, user trust, and open networks like Stellar to serve underbanked populations in developing markets.

Stellar validators will vote on Protocol 15 upgrade on November 23, 2020, introducing Claimable Balances and Sponsored Reserves to simplify user onboarding and reduce friction for anchors and app developers building on the network.

Stellar's SEP-24 and SEP-31 standards define how anchors integrate with wallets and each other for fiat on/off-ramps and cross-border payments. SEP-24 enables direct user deposits/withdrawals through wallet interfaces, while SEP-31 allows anchor-to-anchor bank transfers without end-user involvement.

Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, briefed the House Financial Services Committee on blockchain's role in transforming payments, focusing on how Stellar enables fast, low-cost cross-border remittances through real-world examples like Cowrie in Nigeria and Tempo in Europe.

Stellar Development Foundation announced that Protocol 14 will be skipped in favor of Protocol 15 due to a critical bug discovered during testnet testing. The public network upgrade vote has been rescheduled to November 23, 2020, with detailed upgrade instructions provided for validators, Horizon operators, and SDK users.

Stellar is purpose-built for stablecoins, enabling interoperable global payments by bridging fiat and digital currencies. The network's native asset issuance and Anchor infrastructure create a frictionless cross-border payment system with near-instant settlement and ultra-low costs.

The Stellar Community Fund manager shares six strategies for winning SCF grants: serve your audience, pick the right fund tier, exceed guidelines, engage the community, emphasize marketing, and keep iterating. Success requires balancing technical quality with presentation and community involvement.

The Stellar Development Foundation and FinClusive partner to enable compliant financial access through Stellar's blockchain. FinClusive provides a comprehensive compliance toolkit and on-off ramp services for anchors, addressing de-risking practices that exclude underserved populations from financial services.

Registration is now open for Meridian 2020, Stellar Development Foundation's Nov. 16-20 conference exploring how innovation, inclusion, and governance can drive social and economic change. Featured speakers include former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

The Stellar Development Foundation launched Stellar Community Fund 2.0, splitting the grant program into two funds (Seed and Lab) and introducing a nomination panel plus quadratic voting to address voter fatigue and improve project selection fairness.

SEP-30 enables user-friendly non-custodial wallets by eliminating recovery phrases and passwords. Users log in with just a phone number while maintaining full account control through device keys and distributed recovery servers. Vesseo, a USD savings app on Stellar, demonstrates this approach in production.

Part two of a key management series explains how Stellar accounts work, covering public/secret keys, master keys, multi-signature capabilities, and common wallet strategies. The post introduces SEP-30 as a better approach to user-friendly key management and account recovery.

Stellar Development Foundation introduces SEP-30, an ecosystem standard for non-custodial wallets that simplifies key management and recovery using multi-signature technology. Users can recover accounts through identity verification rather than managing backup keys, making blockchain more accessible to mainstream users.