Stellar Ecosystem
News

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.

This article explains the importance of swap functionality and Automated Market Makers (AMMs) for financial inclusion, detailing how AMMs work, their advantages, and challenges like impermanent loss. It highlights how Soroban smart contracts on Stellar enable developers to build sophisticated AMM protocols for trustless, incentivized liquidity provision.

Beans, a non-custodial payments app on Stellar, announced major updates including a redesigned UI, support for Nigerian Naira and USD bank deposits/withdrawals via new partners Link and Kado, an in-app QR scanner, and a new support page. The app has doubled its user base over three consecutive months.

RPCiege Siege 4 launches with three new Soroban Rust coding challenges (Skirmish 8-10) designed to teach smart contract development while gamifying the learning experience with a fantasy narrative.

This article explains how decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing markets work, contrasting them with traditional banking by highlighting their accessibility, trustlessness, and use of smart contracts. It covers the mechanics of liquidity pools, collateral requirements, and integration with oracles and AMMs, while discussing risks like liquidation and price volatility.

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.

The Stellar Newsletter highlights key developments including the launch of the open-source Stellar Disbursement Platform, Allbridge's cross-chain bridge connecting Stellar to Ethereum, Solana, Celo, and Polygon, and SDF's investment in MoneyGram International. It also promotes Meridian 2023 conference, developer tools for Soroban, and various ecosystem updates like Airtm's USDC integration and Q2 review. The content emphasizes Stellar's growth in interoperability, financial inclusion, and smart contract scalability.

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 Community Fund supports 70+ Soroban projects with educational tools and developer resources. Featured tools include Soroban-React, useSoroban.app, Soroban Learn, Sorobix, SoroSorcerer, and AnChain.AI's smart contract catalog, all designed to lower barriers to entry for Rust and smart contract development.

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.

Stellar Aid Assist is a blockchain-powered aid disbursement system built on Stellar that enables rapid, transparent cash assistance delivery to vulnerable populations. The guide covers the benefits of using Stellar for aid distribution and how it leverages the Stellar Disbursement Platform.

The Stellar Development Foundation has published a comprehensive guidebook for policymakers and regulators on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), addressing the growing global interest in government-backed digital assets on blockchain.

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.

GetPaid is a Stellar-powered marketplace connecting African digital professionals with global companies, enabling cross-border payments in multiple currencies with fast settlement and low fees. The platform leverages Stellar's Anchor platform and SEP standards to provide accessible financial services to freelancers, creators, and traders in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

An educational overview of blockchain fundamentals, explaining how distributed ledgers work, their advantages over centralized databases, and comparisons of major blockchain platforms including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stellar.

RPCiege is a series of Soroban smart contract coding puzzles that teach Rust fundamentals through gamified challenges. Players complete skirmishes to earn digital collectible cards, with eight challenges released so far covering contract invocation, string types, testing, RPC queries, callbacks, RNG, and byte array operations.

This article explores the various consensus mechanisms available in Hyperledger Fabric, including PBFT, Kafka, Raft, Solo, and IBFT. It details their characteristics, use cases, and how they integrate with Fabric's architecture like ordering services and endorsement policies. A brief mention of Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) appears in the context of external consensus integration.

Aquarius announces participation in Stellar Community Fund round 15 to develop Soroban-powered AMMs on the Stellar network. The project aims to create Uniswap v2-style smart contracts, advanced AMM types, and AQUA reward distribution on Soroban futurenet. This builds on Aquarius' established liquidity incentivization system, which has distributed over $2.25M in rewards.

The Stellar Newsletter highlights upcoming events like Meridian 2023 in Madrid with Idris Elba, MoneyGram's USDC case study on Stellar, and Coinbase's integration with USDC on the network. It covers improvements to the Anchor Directory, wallet on/off-ramp integrations, Soroban infrastructure projects, and a new Soroban security bug bounty. Developer updates include proposed transaction changes and SCF submission best practices.