DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
The Stellar Newsletter highlights Q1 achievements including Franklin Templeton's OnChain Fund surpassing $270M AUM on Stellar blockchain, SDF's strategic progress, and new board member Asiff Hirji. It covers partnerships like Arf, Cebuana Lhuillier, and blockchain remittances, plus Soroban smart contracts developments and community spotlights. Upcoming Meridian 2023 in Madrid is announced.
Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, built on Stellar, has surpassed $270 million in assets under management. It is the first U.S. registered fund to use a public blockchain for recording transactions and shareholdings.
Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use Stellar blockchain for transactions and share ownership, surpassed $270 million AUM. The fund is accessible via the Benji Investments app and represents a major institutional adoption of blockchain technology in traditional finance.
The Stellar Newsletter highlights the 2023 roadmap emphasizing utility through tools like Stellar Aid Assist and Soroban smart contracts. It introduces the Stellar Asset Sandbox for easy testnet asset issuance, reviews Q4 2022 achievements, and announces Sorobanathon: Equinox. Additional updates cover TASCOMBANK's blockchain pilot in Ukraine, SDF's CFTC involvement, network growth milestones, and developer resources.
Stellar introduces asset tokenization capabilities with the Stellar Asset Sandbox, a testnet tool by Cheesecake Labs that enables issuers to create, manage, and control assets using native protocol features like minting, burning, freezing, and clawback operations.
MYKOBO recaps its 2022 journey, from inception inspired by remittance challenges to launching Version 2 on the Stellar blockchain with EURC stablecoin. Key achievements include over 400 users, 155K EUR traded volume, and integration with Stellar protocols like SEP-6, SEP-24, and SEP-31. The company anticipates 2023 expansions like EURC swaps, new payment corridors, IBAN services, and debit cards.
WisdomTree gained SEC approval for nine blockchain-enabled funds that maintain secondary ownership records on Stellar and Ethereum blockchains. The funds, which invest in US Treasurys, equities, and other traditional assets, will launch on WisdomTree Prime mobile app next quarter.
The Stellar Newsletter highlights recent ecosystem developments including Soroban smart contracts live on Futurenet with a $100M developer fund and Sorobanathon. It covers Meridian 2022 on-demand sessions, Stellar Quest Live Series 5, bridge bounty grants, and the new Anchor Platform. Additional updates include stablecoin launches, SDF investments in NetXD and Wave, and community fund discussions.
Anthony Barker, CEO of BPV, spoke at the IPR Global Event 2022 panel on blockchain's future in payments and remittances. He shared insights on stablecoins, regulatory compliance, and integrating protocols like Stellar with traditional finance. The discussion highlighted blockchain's potential to enhance transaction security and efficiency for money transfer organizations.
Benkiko, a micropayment protocol building on Stellar, is evolving to a decentralized autonomous organization. Its core innovation is a six-tier tokenization economy where communities create and trade custom tokens representing any item of economic value. The model draws from economic theory around monetary demand and peer-to-peer exchange, enabling micropayments, community economies, and full token-based systems.
Stellar Protocol 17 introduced asset clawback functionality, enabling authorized entities to recover digital securities for regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, and lost key recovery. Co-authored by Securrency, this feature addresses institutional adoption concerns and regulatory requirements for custodying digital assets.
Project Venus is a DeFi protocol on Stellar using Turing Signing Servers (TSS) to enable trustless smart contracts without an on-chain VM. It implements short-term FX forwards to improve capital efficiency for Stellar-based financial institutions like remittance companies. TSS leverages off-chain servers (turrets) combined with Stellar's multi-sig for efficient DeFi.
The Stellar public network successfully upgraded to Protocol 17 on June 1, 2021, introducing Asset Clawback—a feature enabling businesses to issue regulated financial instruments like bonds and equities while maintaining compliance capabilities.
This article explains NFTs using analogies like baseball cards and highlights their potential for artists, musicians, and gamers. It focuses on Litemint, a low-cost NFT platform built on the Stellar blockchain, where the author minted their own artwork for just $1.86. The piece critiques media hype around high-profile NFT sales while emphasizing benefits like direct royalties and ownership decentralization.
The article contrasts traditional payment apps like Venmo with Stellar's blockchain for low-cost, borderless remittances. It highlights Stellar's negligible transaction fees, decentralized exchange for fair rates, and adoption by Franklin Templeton. The author, a self-described no-coiner, expresses optimism about cryptocurrency's potential to empower the unbanked.
This article explains the Stellar DEX pricing limitation for indivisible NFT tokens due to INT32 constraints and presents Litemint's solution using synthetic assets and path payments. It details how small stroop amounts cause offer price overflows and demonstrates a workaround for high-value NFT trades. The post includes JavaScript code examples for implementing bids and offers that automatically handle the limitation.
Germany's Bankhaus von der Heydt, established in 1754, is issuing a euro stablecoin on Stellar in partnership with Bitbond, marking the first direct stablecoin issuance by a traditional banking institution on the network.
The Stellar Development Foundation will present at Consensus: Distributed 2020, sharing updates on network growth, strategic investments, and ecosystem success stories focused on interoperability and financial inclusion.
Bank von der Heydt, a 270-year-old Munich bank, partnered with Bitbond to tokenize securities on Stellar and issue a euro stablecoin for institutional private placements, launching a production version in April.
Franklin Templeton will use Curv's MPC wallet solutions to secure tokenized shares of its government money market fund on Stellar, enabling instant access and client autonomy over $700B+ in assets.
The Stellar Monthly Roundup for September 2019 covers ecosystem updates including collaborations, AMAs, new hires at SDF, developer releases, community fund proposals, and ecosystem projects like Cowrie Systems and Bitbond. Highlights include the upcoming Meridian conference in Mexico City and a proposal to disable inflation. New features on stellarbeat.io and protocol upgrades prepare the network for future improvements.
Franklin Templeton filed an SEC prospectus for a money market fund whose shares would be recorded on the Stellar Network. The fund would invest in government securities and cash, with shares purchasable through the firm's app starting at $20 minimum.
IBM is expanding cryptocurrency adoption beyond Stellar, meeting with 20 central banks to explore blockchain-based digital currencies and tokenizing assets like securities, commodities, and utilities across enterprises.