DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
A comprehensive guide to testing smart contracts on Stellar using Soroban, covering unit tests, integration tests, fork tests, fuzzing, differential testing, and code coverage strategies all built into the Rust SDK.
The Stellar Development Foundation's research team published a 2024 recap highlighting their expansion to two full-time researchers, three peer-reviewed publications on distributed computing and consensus algorithms, five research talks at major conferences, and funding for 14 academic research groups globally.
Tansu has successfully validated the first tranche of its Stellar Community Fund build Award, completing three key milestones for a decentralized organization (DAO) on Stellar. This includes a Soroban smart contract backend with DAO functionality, a matching frontend, and extensive maintenance work. Additional efforts focus on IPFS integration, design improvements, anonymous voting, and reducing external dependencies for true decentralization.
Balanced released its Q4 2024 update, highlighting launches on Stellar, Solana, and Optimism, alongside BALN cross-chain deployment across multiple blockchains including Stellar. Key achievements include intent-based trades between Arbitrum and Sui, smart contract audits, and preparations for cross-chain liquidity and Savings Rate. The DAO reported $82k in fees, with ongoing governance and economic enshrinement progress.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #32 awarded $1,377,495 worth of XLM to 17 projects, including wallets, DeFi platforms, payment solutions, and developer tools. The round received 78 submissions, with 40 being first-time applicants, demonstrating continued ecosystem growth and innovation.
DappLooker reviews its remarkable 2024 growth, highlighting 3x revenue increase, expansion to 25+ chains, and over 1000 protocols onboarded. Key launches include AI-powered Loky analyst and innovative tools like DataBots and AI Studio. Partnerships span Arbitrum, Stellar Community Fund, Manta, HAQQ, and others, with active participation in Web3 events.
Reflector DAO has voted to add Lightsail and CreitTech as node providers, expanding its quorum to seven trusted participants. This decentralization strengthens Reflector's oracle infrastructure for providing secure price feeds to the Stellar ecosystem.
The Stellar Development Foundation published a comprehensive 2024 year-in-review highlighting major ecosystem achievements including the mainnet launch of Soroban smart contracts, expansion of DeFi protocols like Blend, integration of payment solutions with MoneyGram and Stripe, real-world asset adoption through Franklin Templeton and Paxos, and humanitarian aid initiatives through UNHCR partnerships.
Ghanaian fintech Seevcash integrated DeFindex's white-label DeFi yield infrastructure on Stellar in just one week, slashing development time from 12+ months and reducing code by 50%. Post-marketing, TVL spiked 433% to $13K with 24 active users earning yields on stablecoins. The SDK enabled gasless transactions via Stellar sponsorship, building trust in unbanked markets.
Balanced's 2024 review highlights explosive growth with new features like Savings Rate offering 17% average returns, economic enshrinement with ICON, and expansion to 12 blockchains including Stellar. Key developments include cross-chain loans, BALN & sICX tokens, and intent-based trades for efficient swapping. The protocol looks ahead to 2025 with cross-chain liquidity, more chain integrations, and enhanced trading.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #30 round awarded $2.17 million in XLM to 22 projects in the first round of SCF 6.0, including initiatives for DeFi, payments, humanitarian aid, NFTs, developer tools, and financial inclusion across the Stellar ecosystem.
Balanced, a cross-chain DeFi platform built on ICON, has launched on Optimism, its 5th Ethereum ecosystem chain. Users can now swap ETH and USDC for assets on other blockchains, transfer cross-chain, and borrow bnUSD using ETH as collateral. The platform leverages ICON's GMP for secure connections, including to Stellar.
Runtime Verification details their process for building formal verification and fuzzing tools using the K Framework to enhance smart contract security. They highlight tools like Kontrol for Ethereum and Komet specifically for Soroban smart contracts on Stellar. The post aims to bridge the gap between developers and advanced security tooling.
This article explores how passkeys—a secure, user-friendly authentication method already adopted in Web2—are being integrated into Stellar's blockchain to improve user experience and drive adoption. Stellar gained a significant advantage by implementing native secp256r1 support in Protocol 21, enabling passkey functionality directly at the protocol level rather than through third-party solutions.
Balanced, a cross-chain DeFi app on ICON, has integrated Solana as its 11th blockchain connection, enabling users to swap SOL, transfer assets cross-chain, use SOL and JitoSOL as collateral to borrow bnUSD, and supply liquidity on ICON. This expands Balanced's reach to Solana's 5 million daily active users with audited smart contracts and low fees. The integration leverages ICON's GMP protocol, which also connects to Stellar and other chains.
Balanced, a cross-chain DeFi app, has launched on the Stellar blockchain, enabling users to swap XLM for assets on other chains, use it as collateral to borrow bnUSD stablecoin, and transfer to ICON for liquidity provision. The integration includes a Stellar Community Fund grant, audited smart contracts, and fast, low-cost transactions. It leverages ICON's GMP for seamless interoperability.
The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q3 2024 report highlighting major ecosystem milestones including 9 million network addresses, $5M+ in Enterprise and Matching Fund investments, and the launch of Stellar Community Fund 6.0. Key achievements include Franklin Templeton's Benji platform reaching $450M in supply, Protocol 22 development nearing completion, and expanded ecosystem integrations with Dune and DefiLlama.
Protocol 22 is coming to Stellar Testnet on November 12 and will go to Mainnet validator vote on December 5. The upgrade introduces constructors for Soroban contracts (CAP-0058) and BLS12-381 cryptographic host functions (CAP-0059), enabling more efficient smart contracts and advanced privacy features like zk-SNARKs.
Hana Wallet now integrates Soroswap, allowing users to easily swap Stellar tokens like XLM and USDC directly from their mobile devices. The article provides a step-by-step guide to installing Hana Wallet, setting it up for the Stellar network, and accessing Soroswap via the app's DApps directory. This enhances decentralized finance accessibility on the Soroban ecosystem without KYC requirements.
CoinFabrik shares insights from three major crypto conferences: Permissionless III highlighted Web3 marketing's growing importance, Meridian 2024 showcased Scout's positive reception in the Stellar ecosystem, and Avalanche Summit LATAM featured CyScout, their new CodeQL-based security tool for Solidity developers.
A developer shares how they deployed their Stellar-based dApp 'Tansu' on IPFS using Storacha for storage and xlm.sh as a Stellar-aware gateway. The tutorial covers IPFS basics, uploading files, handling CSP issues with Soroban RPC, and leveraging Stellar's manage data operations for CID resolution. This enhances decentralization while integrating seamlessly with Stellar and Soroban ecosystems.
Blockaid has integrated its Onchain Detection and Response (ODR) security technology into Stellar's Lobstr and Freighter wallets, providing real-time threat monitoring and malicious transaction detection. This partnership marks the first deployment of Blockaid's Web3 security features on the Stellar blockchain.
zkCross Network announces Super Accounts on Stellar, powered by their Chain Abstraction Layer, enabling seamless 1-click cross-chain DeFi transactions without bridging or gas management. This integrates zkCrossDEX with Stellar's Soroban blockchain, supported by a Stellar Community Fund grant. The phased roadmap includes AMM DEX, staking, launchpad, and perpetuals trading.
Dfns ships Givre, an optimized FROST threshold signature library for distributed cryptographic systems. The open-source implementation outperforms existing Rust threshold EdDSA implementations and supports Bitcoin BIP340, Stellar, Soroban, Solana, and Tezos. Now maintained by Lockness under the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.
AUDC, a Novatti Group fintech company, has issued AUDD, an Australian dollar-backed stablecoin on the Stellar network, to solve cross-border payment liquidity challenges for financial institutions. By leveraging Stellar's DEX and a companion asset (AUDR) for on-demand minting, AUDD enables faster, cheaper, and more efficient global transactions.
Tansu integrates stellar.expert's contract validation mechanism to ensure its on-chain contract matches the source code repository. This uses GitHub actions and SLSA attestations for supply-chain security. The feature verifies contract provenance on the Stellar blockchain explorer.
Soroswap, the first DEX on Stellar blockchain, evolved into an AMM aggregator to combat fragmented liquidity. They partnered with PaltaLabs for development and Runtime Verification for auditing via the Stellar Audit Bank program. The audit enhanced security and provided key insights like using deployer contracts.
Tansu project announces submission for SCF Build award, outlining plans for a decentralized platform with DAOs for project management and reputation badges for contributors. The proposal includes on-chain release processes, fund allocation via wallets and potential Quadratic Funding, and a detailed roadmap across MVP, Testnet, and Mainnet phases. Emphasis is placed on community governance, transparency, and open-source sustainability within the Stellar ecosystem.