Stellar Ecosystem
News

x402, a protocol enabling autonomous AI agents to make micropayments without API keys or subscriptions, is now live on Stellar. The protocol uses HTTP 402 status codes to facilitate instant stablecoin payments, with Stellar chosen as the settlement layer due to its speed, low fees, and reliability.

Stellar processed 3.6 billion transactions in 2025 with 99.99% uptime, reaching 10.3 million unique addresses and $785 million in onchain real-world assets. Major institutions including Franklin Templeton, U.S. Bank, PayPal, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands deployed production systems on Stellar, while payment volume hit $55.6 billion, up 52% year-over-year.

The Stellar Development Foundation introduced Meridian Pay, a production-ready smart wallet built on Stellar Mainnet that launched at Meridian 2025 in Rio de Janeiro. The wallet uses passkey-based authentication, eliminating seed phrases and passwords while enabling seamless onchain transactions with zero user-facing fees.

This guide explains how to receive and send USDC, XLM, EURC, and other tokens on the Stellar blockchain using HOT Wallet. It highlights HOT Wallet's advantages like free asset activation, protection against fund loss, full support for claimable balances, and low fees. The tutorial covers step-by-step processes for deposits, transfers, and claiming balances, making Stellar accessible for beginners.

This article explains the multi-layer architecture of modern Web3 blockchains, from Layer 0 foundations to Layer 3 specialized applications. It covers key examples like Cosmos, Ethereum, Optimism, and briefly mentions Stellar among supported L1 networks in the HOT Wallet. The piece promotes a multi-chain wallet for seamless interaction across these layers.

COCA's 2025 review highlights its transformation from a crypto wallet to a stablecoin banking ecosystem with massive growth in users, card volume, and $COCA token value. Key achievements include Stellar integrations for USDC/EURC, a Series A with Stellar Development Foundation, and product launches like COCA 2.0 and rewards. The company outlines ambitious 2026 plans including Apple Pay, non-custodial accounts, and global expansion.

Lantern Finance positions itself as a superior alternative to Nexo for crypto-backed loans, supporting Stellar (XLM) alongside other major cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, and SOL. It highlights better interest rates (e.g., 13% for XLM vs. Nexo's 18.9%), higher LTV ratios for some assets, a 72-hour grace period for margin calls, and zero liquidation fees. Lantern emphasizes enhanced security via BitGo custody and transparent collateral management.

Lantern Finance is presented as a superior alternative to Arch Lending for crypto-backed loans, supporting more currencies including Stellar (XLM), offering better security with BitGo custody and insurance, lower interest rates on select assets, zero liquidation fees, and a 72-hour grace period. The comparison table and FAQ highlight Lantern's advantages in collateral options, risk management, customer service, and overall borrower protections. Arch Lending supports fewer currencies and has higher fees in several areas.

Token Terminal's weekly Snapshot covers emerging DeFi vault curators, Paxos' growth to $6.7B in issued assets including PYUSD and USDG, Solana's diversifying stablecoin landscape, and Ethereum L1's record transactions at low fees. It highlights new listings like Fathom on XDC and tokenized assets on Stellar such as sgBENJI and gBENJI. Platform updates include Studio improvements and a new Nansen integration.

HOT Wallet by HOT Labs is presented as the premier wallet for Stellar (XLM) users, offering intuitive swaps, bridging, staking, and free account activation on the Stellar network. It supports XLM, USDC, EURC, and other assets across mobile, browser, and Telegram platforms. The article details setup, swapping via Aquarius and Soroswap, bridging, and unique features like MPC security and 24/7 support.

Trustless Work introduces an escrow-based capital allocation system for tokenized projects, where investor funds are held in smart contracts and released progressively based on verified milestones rather than upfront to issuers. The platform enables transparent, trustless fundraising for real-world assets, construction, and infrastructure projects by separating capital control from token issuance.

The Stellar Development Foundation published a comprehensive 2025 year-in-review highlighting major ecosystem growth: RWAs grew 172%, TVL reached $211M+ (up 95%), and the network processed 21.5B+ operations across 10M+ active accounts. Key institutional milestones included PayPal USD going live on Stellar, Franklin Templeton expanding tokenized Treasuries to European investors, and the Marshall Islands completing the world's first onchain UBI disbursement.

This article explores composability on Stellar, demonstrating how modular DeFi protocols can be combined to create seamless user experiences. It details a real-world example of Blend, DeFindex, and Beans working together as execution, abstraction, and user-facing layers, and encourages developers to build on Stellar's growing ecosystem.

SorobanDomains is upgrading to NFDs (Non-Fungible Domains) using the SEP-0050 NFT standard on Stellar's Soroban. A new Registry v2 removes collateral requirements in favor of yearly fees and adds Soroban Events for better indexing. Existing domain owners get 90 days to migrate for free before new registrations open.

A detailed comparison of COCA and KAST crypto cards highlights COCA's advantages in self-custody, real stablecoin cashback, zero fees, multichain support including Stellar, and additional perks like APY and travel benefits. KAST offers custodial convenience and broader availability but relies on speculative points rewards and higher fees. COCA is positioned as the superior choice for most users seeking real value.

The article explains the lifecycle of Trustless Work escrows on blockchain, detailing six phases from initiation to dispute resolution. It highlights how programmable trust, roles, and on-chain immutability ensure transparency, accountability, and auditability in payments. This structure benefits businesses, enterprises, and developers by replacing blind transactions with verifiable actions.

Trustless Work is a Stellar-based escrow system where roles define permissions for managing funds in a trustless manner. Key roles include Issuer, Funder, Service Provider, Approver, Release Signer, Receiver, Platform Address, Dispute Resolver, and Observer. This design ensures transparency, security, and programmability without single-party control over funds.

Spiko details their custom blockchain infrastructure for handling indexing, real-time queries, and transaction relaying across multiple networks including Stellar. They moved away from off-the-shelf solutions like The Graph due to reliability issues, building a robust system using RPC servers. This architecture improves efficiency, reduces bugs, and speeds up expansion to new chains.

The Stellar i³ Awards 2025 recognized three standout projects at Stellar Meridian: Decaf won Impact for its non-custodial stablecoin app with 50k users, Etherfuse won Innovation for tokenized government treasuries and peso stablecoins, and DeFindex won Interoperability for its plug-and-play DeFi API for wallets.

This article analyzes McKinsey's 2025 Global Payments Report, highlighting stablecoins like USDC and PYUSD on the Stellar network as key to future payment rails amid margin compression, rail fragmentation, and AI-driven edge intelligence. It outlines practical applications for remittances, merchant settlements, B2B treasury, and agentic commerce. Stellar's low fees, Soroban smart contracts, and MoneyGram integrations position it as a pragmatic, programmable settlement layer.

The article compares redeemable gold-backed tokens like DGLD, PAXG, XAUt, DaVinci, and SGT, focusing on Swiss redemption options, minimums, fees, and logistics. It highlights practical challenges for physical delivery and contrasts with non-redeemable gold ETFs. A dedicated section explains Stellar's advantages for issuing such tokenized assets.

A thought leadership piece arguing that blockchain infrastructure risks repeating historical patterns of monopolistic control unless the ecosystem prioritizes open, permissionless networks over vertically integrated private platforms. The author draws parallels to railroad monopolies and internet consolidation, advocating for Stellar-like open infrastructure as the solution.

Wirex, a UK-based digital payments platform, partnered with Crossmint to upgrade from EOAs to smart wallets for global scalability. This enables programmable governance, multichain support including Stellar, and flexible custody models. The shift reduces vendor lock-in and accelerates product launches across retail and institutional offerings.

DCM launched the Transparent Network (TPN), a blockchain-based instant payment system built on Stellar, to modernize Ukraine's financial infrastructure. TPN enables banks to process payments in under five seconds with 70% reduction in acquiring costs for merchants and 60% reduction in transaction costs for institutions.

Stripe and Paradigm's Tempo is a new blockchain optimized for stablecoin payments, featuring stablecoin fees, 100k+ TPS, and EVM compatibility, directly challenging Stellar's established position in cross-border payments. Stellar, with a decade of proven reliability, anchors, SCP consensus, and Soroban smart contracts, offers production-ready compliance and fiat connectivity. The article compares their strengths, suggesting both could complementarily serve fintech needs.

Certora organized the first formal verification contests for Rust-based Soroban smart contracts on Stellar, partnering with Code4rena and Cantina. The contests for Blend v2 and Aquarius protocols featured a 40,000 USDC prize pool and used mutation testing to evaluate specifications. They demonstrated the effectiveness of Certora's Sunbeam prover in securing DeFi protocols on Stellar.