Stellar Ecosystem
News

Balanced protocol is transitioning post-merger with ICON into SODAX on Sonic, with PARROT9 taking over the app. They've added Stellar support for intent-based trades, fixed bugs, and supported Stellar campaigns. Q3 plans include money market demos, full intent trades, and shipping Balanced v2.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) welcomes Jason Karsh as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Karsh brings extensive experience from Google, Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and Block to oversee global marketing and position Stellar for broader adoption. In an interview, he shares insights on audience-focused marketing, crypto myths, and strategies for L1 growth.

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.

XLM surged 6% to $0.3880 on Saturday, becoming the top performer among top 20 cryptocurrencies. The rally follows PayPal's announcement of launching its PYUSD stablecoin on Stellar, with executives highlighting the network's speed, low costs, and global reach across 170+ countries.

Arf uses USDC on Stellar to provide short-term working capital loans to licensed money service providers, enabling real-time settlement without requiring prefunding.

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.

Airtm, Bridge, and Stellar blockchain have integrated to enable fast, low-cost stablecoin payouts for global freelancers and gig workers. Nearly half of Airtm's stablecoin payouts now use Stellar, processing over 1.2 million transactions across seven continents since March 2024. This partnership leverages Stellar's anchor network for seamless fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, revolutionizing cross-border payroll.

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.

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.

Raja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, discusses how Stellar's fast, low-cost blockchain is enabling financial inclusion globally, with use cases ranging from institutional adoption by Franklin Templeton to UN-backed humanitarian aid delivery in crisis zones.

PayPal is bringing its PYUSD stablecoin to Stellar pending regulatory approval, enabling fast, low-cost cross-border payments and remittances through Stellar's network of on and off-ramps.

PayPal announced plans to launch its PYUSD stablecoin on Stellar, pending regulatory approval from NYDFS. The stablecoin, already live on Ethereum and Solana with nearly $1B market cap, will leverage Stellar's infrastructure for cross-border payments and financing applications.

MoneyGram has reached $30 million in transaction volume through its crypto-to-cash service on Stellar, operating in over 170 countries. The partnership demonstrates real-world blockchain adoption for financial inclusion, enabling users to convert stablecoins to local currency and facilitating humanitarian aid distribution.

The Stellar Community Fund Kickstart #11, held in March 2025, was a five-day virtual program that accelerated 13 blockchain startups from 9 countries through design sprints focused on MVP development, UX, architecture, GTM, and SCF submissions. All participants received Kickstart Awards, with standout projects like XHIBIT, Vaquita, WYT Network, Peridot Finance, and Dobprotocol recognized for their innovation on the Stellar ecosystem. Participants praised the program's organization and mentorship.

The Stellar Q2 testnet will reset on June 18 at 17:00 UTC, wiping all contracts, assets, accounts, and data. Simultaneously, Trustless Work v2.0 will launch on the main branch with major upgrades including multi-release escrows, API changes, and new escrow logic. Developers should prepare for breaking changes with upcoming guides and documentation.

The article explains blockchain security fundamentals and highlights why Stellar is ideal for fast, low-cost payments and financial inclusion. It emphasizes Stellar's support for both cryptocurrencies and fiat, with tiny transaction fees. Tellus Cooperative promotes educational events on Stellar and Web3 for Latin American communities.

Trustless Work presents escrow as a critical infrastructure layer for marketplace platforms, enabling non-custodial fund holding between buyers and sellers without requiring platforms to build custom payment systems. The article outlines how escrow solves the coordination problem in marketplaces and details the technical implementation using stablecoins and smart contracts.