DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
Zebec Network recaps a transformative month featuring a full rebrand, migration to the new $ZBCN token now live on major exchanges, release of their V2 whitepaper, and product upgrades. They highlight a Stellar Foundation grant for WageLink's cross-border remittance integration, enhancements to Zebec Instant Card with new tokens and currencies, and community rewards via airdrops. The update also covers their 'Future of Money' interview series and upcoming events.
This guide details how XLM holders can provide liquidity to the KSM/XLM pool on Zenlink DEX via the Amplitude network on Kusama. It covers setting up a Polkadot wallet, acquiring KSM and AMPE, bridging XLM using Spacewalk from Lobstr, and adding liquidity. The process enables earning rewards while enhancing liquidity in the Amplitude ecosystem.
This guide provides a detailed step-by-step tutorial on using the Spacewalk Bridge to transfer Stellar assets like stablecoins and XLM to the Pendulum ecosystem on Polkadot. It covers wallet setup with Lobstr, acquiring and exchanging assets, obtaining PEN for fees, and completing the bridge process. The bridge enables Stellar users to access DeFi opportunities on Pendulum, including upcoming XLM trading pools.
The Stellar Development Foundation ran a dogfooding experiment called the Okashi Cakewalk, a web-based smart contract game built on Soroban that enabled all SDF employees—regardless of technical background—to write, deploy, and invoke smart contracts. Over 170 NFTs were minted on Futurenet, demonstrating successful onboarding to Soroban development and providing valuable UX feedback to the Okashi team.
A comprehensive guide explaining authentication and authorization mechanisms in blockchain, with specific focus on how Stellar and Soroban implement these security features through digital signatures, multisig, thresholds, and smart contract-based account abstraction.
A technical guide comparing data types between Solidity (EVM) and Rust (Soroban), part 2 of a migration series. The article covers primitive and composite types, key differences like String vs. Symbol, and provides code examples for both languages.
This article explores yield-bearing assets on Stellar using Soroban smart contracts, featuring the Stellar Asset Sandbox by Cheesecake Labs. It provides detailed guides for creating and managing certificates of deposit and bonds on Stellar's testnet.
Stellar Development Foundation co-founder Jed McCaleb discusses his journey as an innovator, from early blockchain challenges to current work in space habitation and AI, in the latest episode of the 'block by block' podcast.
A roundup of global crypto regulations, adoption trends, and developments, including UK stablecoin laws, Hong Kong licensing, and South Africa's embrace of stablecoins. Highlights mainstream adoption like Swiss Postfinance's crypto services and Web3 hurdles. Notably features the launch of smart contracts on the Stellar network, marking a new era for the blockchain.
This article provides a comprehensive overview of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and its implementation on the Stellar blockchain. It explains DeFi's core components—including blockchain, smart contracts, DEXs, and liquidity pools—and highlights how Soroban, Stellar's native smart contracts platform, enables developers to build DeFi applications with access to real-world financial rails.
A comprehensive tutorial on migrating smart contracts from Ethereum's Solidity to Soroban's Rust SDK, comparing the two languages and providing step-by-step examples of building a 'Hello World' contract in both environments.
The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q4 2023 quarterly report highlighting major ecosystem achievements including Protocol 20 support, Soroban mainnet rollout, $4M in SCF funding to 88 projects, and over $2M in humanitarian aid disbursed via the Stellar Disbursement Platform.
The Stellar Development Foundation organized the Workshop on Heterogeneous Trust in Distributed Systems (HTDS) in October, bringing together 30 researchers to explore consensus mechanisms where validators independently choose which peers to trust—a key feature of Stellar and other networks.
Educational explainer on Stellar's Proof-of-Agreement consensus mechanism, using real-world analogies to explain how quorums, slices, and topens enable decentralized agreement without proof-of-work or proof-of-stake.
This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide to deploying a Soroban RPC server on DigitalOcean Kubernetes using Stellar Development Foundation Helm charts. It covers cluster creation, Helm repository setup, configuration for testnet, Nginx Ingress installation, DNS setup, and verification. Benefits include improved reliability, control, and performance for Stellar smart contract interactions.
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.
This article explains how Stellar's blockchain technology enables fast, low-cost cross-border payments by combining a frictionless blockchain pathway with local anchor partners for currency conversion. It contrasts Stellar's approach with traditional SWIFT wire transfers and highlights key advantages including settlement in seconds, minimal transaction costs, and full transparency.
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.
This article explains asset tokenization on Stellar, covering what it is, who can tokenize assets, key benefits like operational efficiency and transparency, and the technical process for creating digital representations of real-world assets on the network.
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.
The Stellar Development Foundation announced that its Head of Policy, Lesley Chavkin, has joined the Stablecoin Standard Advisory Board to contribute expertise on stablecoin regulation and standards. This move aligns with SDF's mission to advance financial inclusion and support innovative payments solutions, particularly for remittances.
This article explains stablecoins, their types, growth, risks, and regulatory challenges in crypto markets. It highlights issues like centralization and past failures such as TerraUSD. Range is introduced as a leading platform for cross-chain stablecoin intelligence, trusted by Stellar and others.
The Stellar Development Foundation announced the winners of Sorobanathon: Road to Mainnet, a month-long virtual hackathon held September-October 2023. Four projects were awarded: Cowchain Farm (gaming), Divify (expense management), Kwickbit & Paltalabs (compliance), and Soro-Shark (tokenization), with SDF planning additional hackathons for 2024.
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.
Stellar's Protocol 20 upgrade, which enables Soroban smart contracts on Mainnet, is approaching a validator vote. The upgrade implements 12 Core Advancement Proposals and unlocks new possibilities for developers while maintaining Stellar's existing capabilities.
Australian crypto companies Upside and Stables announce a partnership to deliver Web3 education, events, and content, while providing Stables a Melbourne base at Upside HQ. Stables offers a digital wallet for spending, sending, and earning stablecoins, aiding businesses with treasury and payroll. The collaboration aims to boost crypto adoption in Australia.
The Stellar Development Foundation joined the CALP Network as its first Layer 1 blockchain member, advancing humanitarian cash and voucher assistance programs. SDF's Stellar Aid Assist platform, powered by the Stellar Disbursement Platform, enables rapid, low-cost digital payments to crisis-affected populations worldwide.
The Stellar Development Foundation highlights five outstanding submissions from the Sorobounty Spectacular program, a content bounty initiative that encouraged developers to build Soroban dapps with educational tutorials. Featured projects include a regulated assets dapp, a snooker game, a farming game, a payment streaming app, and a Bitcoin price oracle.