Stellar Ecosystem
News

SDF plans to scale Stellar Core to 5000 TPS in 2025 through Protocol 23, parallel execution, decoupled consensus, aggressive caching, and improved benchmarking. These upgrades enable Soroban to handle higher transaction volumes without requiring node operators to upgrade hardware.

human.tech integrates privacy-preserving identity tools like Human ID, Human Passport, and Human Wallet with the Stellar blockchain to verify humans, simplify onboarding, and enable compliance. These zero-knowledge proof-based solutions address identity gaps for the unbanked, enhancing Stellar's applications in remittances, humanitarian aid, and tokenized assets. Supported by Stellar's Community Fund, the tools are now live and rolling out progressively.

Mercury, a Stellar ecosystem runtime platform, is shifting to a Light Client deployment model that unbundles data sourcing, execution, and delivery into modular, open-source components. This redesign reduces operational overhead while preserving Mercury's Zephyr and Retroshades runtime technology and enabling third-party infrastructure operators to run Mercury services independently.

A developer shares her firsthand experience winning a track at Casa Builder México 2025 hackathon, building a Stellar/Soroban smart contract project with a mixed Web2/Web3 team despite having no prior Rust or Stellar experience. She details the technical stack, timeline, challenges, and key lessons learned about participating in hackathons.

The Stellar Development Foundation showcased 'Stable Summer' at ETHCC in Cannes, highlighting real-world stablecoin use cases including payroll in crisis zones, cash-in/cash-out flows, and institutional adoption. Key themes emphasized infrastructure, interoperability, trust-based design, and B2B payments over speculation.

José Fernández da Ponte joins the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) as President and Chief Growth Officer, bringing expertise from PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin launch and fintech scaling. In an interview with Denelle Dixon, he emphasizes utility, trust, regulatory alignment, and community-driven growth to expand Stellar's adoption. His focus includes partnerships, distribution, and building non-excludable financial infrastructure for global inclusion.

Trustless Work participated in Casa Builders CDMX, a Stellar-hosted hackathon in Mexico focusing on financial inclusion, digital identity, and public good transparency. Their team built Pacto, a decentralized P2P stablecoin ramp using Trustless Work's programmable escrow, and won the event. The hackathon united Latin American builders, with strong Costa Rican representation.

The Stellar Development Foundation outlines its 2025 roadmap goal to double Tier 1 network resilience from 7 to 13 organizations, increasing fault tolerance from 2 to 4 organization failures. The post explains how Stellar's proof-of-agreement consensus works, the history of validator coordination, and the technical and organizational steps needed to achieve this decentralization milestone.

Keyrails, a stablecoin-based operating system for cross-border payments in emerging markets, has selected Dfns to power its wallet infrastructure. The platform supports stablecoins across multiple blockchains including Stellar, enabling programmable treasuries, fast settlements, and compliance. This partnership enhances security and scalability for high-value transactions in regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Stellar Lumens surged 14.3% to $0.293 on institutional volume following the release of Stellar Core v23.0.0rc2, though the rally reversed sharply to $0.2896 as short-term traders exited positions.

June 2025 marked significant growth for the Stellar ecosystem with major European engagement, landmark DeFi product launches, and powerful developer tools. Key highlights include Berlin and Istanbul blockchain weeks, the launch of Beans Earn with Defindex, PayPal's intent to bring PYUSD to Stellar, and new developer infrastructure from OpenZeppelin and Creit Tech.

Range announces a partnership with Peersyst to bring its cross-chain monitoring, security, and intelligence tools to the XRPL EVM sidechain launching in 2025. XRPL EVM introduces Ethereum-compatible smart contracts to the XRP ecosystem while preserving XRPL's speed and low costs, enabling DeFi, staking, and interoperability via IBC, Axelar, and Wormhole. Range will provide day-one support including its Cross-Chain Explorer, Monitoring and Alerts, and Trail forensic tool.

Trustless Work is participating in OnlyDust OS Wave #1 from June 26 to July 6, offering high-impact tasks for contributors preparing for mainnet launch. Tasks include escrow viewer refactors, wallet analytics, smart contract optimizations, passkey integration, and backoffice enhancements on the Stellar blockchain. Contributors can join via OnlyDust to work on real smart contracts, UI features, and dev tools for the stablecoin economy.

Trustless Work has released an SDK MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration for Cursor, enabling AI-assisted development of escrow flows. The MCP allows developers to scaffold escrow integrations directly from their editor with autocomplete, type safety, and reduced friction.

Normal announces the hiring of skilled developer Niko Gorjan to strengthen its team and leadership structure. Niko's expertise is key to the upcoming launch of the Normal Protocol on the Stellar blockchain mainnet in August 2025. The protocol offers custom crypto indexes, trading of top 200 cryptocurrencies, and lending/borrowing without centralized exchanges.

The U.S. GENIUS Act has passed the House, providing regulatory clarity for USD-pegged stablecoins and enabling compliant innovation. This is a major boost for builders on Stellar, especially with USDC and new entrants like PYUSD. It unlocks opportunities in LATAM remittances and programmable payments via infrastructure like Trustless Work.

Stellar released its 2025 developer roadmap, featuring upgrades to Lab 3.0/4.0 developer tools, Protocol 23 targeting 5,000 TPS, and enterprise payment features to position the network as a major DeFi and institutional blockchain.

The Stellar Community Fund published guidance on what makes successful grant applications stand out, based on feedback from round 36 panelists. The article outlines five key areas: clear project purpose, technical proof of execution, realistic budgeting, genuine community engagement, and proactive compliance planning.