Stellar Ecosystem
News

The EU remittance market is consolidating around regulated stablecoin infrastructure. Companies using stablecoins settle at 1-2% vs 6%+ with traditional rails. Market consolidation has narrowed vendor options, and overlapping EU regulations make vendor selection now a strategic cost decision, not just a risk one.

Stablecoin adoption in Latin America is structural, not speculative. The region's $1.5T in crypto flows between 2022 and 2025 reflects three core drivers: currency instability in high-inflation economies, expensive cross-border payments (typically 5-7%), and limited banking access. Analysis explores adoption patterns by country and the evolving regulatory landscape.

MoneyGram launches MGUSD on Stellar: a stablecoin that gives its 60 million customers self-custodial digital dollar balances connected to MoneyGram's global cash-access network. The product prioritizes real-world utility for underbanked populations over trading liquidity, paired with treasury modernization across stablecoin prefunding and settlement.

MoneyGram and Stellar extend their partnership to expand stablecoin-backed remittance services from Colombia to El Salvador, enabling families to receive and hold USDC instantly at MoneyGram locations across Latin America.

Tether launches self-custodial wallet supporting USDT, USAT, and XAUT across multiple blockchains. MoneyGram expands stablecoin balance service to El Salvador via Stellar partnership. Rain and Lydian debut Lydian Card enabling 300+ digital assets at 150M merchants.

Stellar has selected Zebec to deploy real-time streaming payroll natively on its network, marking Zebec's first deployment outside Solana. The integration enables businesses to pay employees and contractors in USDC by the second, with access to 450,000+ MoneyGram locations for cash pickup globally.

Xcapit's Shelter is a multi-chain value distribution platform proven through UNICEF humanitarian pilots in Peru and Kenya. Built on EVM, Stellar, and Cardano, it enables transparent, auditable cash transfers and disbursements at near-zero cost across any context from aid to corporate benefits.

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.

Normal Finance launches on Stellar, introducing index funds and synthetic assets to the ecosystem. This adds investment primitives to Stellar's payments and remittance infrastructure, enabling users to trade diversified crypto markets and build portfolios onchain without leaving the network.

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.

An essay arguing that blockchain protocols and traditional payment systems will coexist and complement each other rather than compete. The author, from the Stellar Development Foundation, advocates for building bridges between code-based coordination (open protocols) and committee-based coordination (legacy financial rails) to serve different use cases and global financial needs.

This article introduces Stellar blockchain as a solution to slow, expensive cross-border payments, highlighting its fast 3-5 second confirmations, minimal fixed fees, and real-world focus via anchors and SCP consensus. It covers Stellar's origins, differences from other blockchains, tools like Stellar Laboratory for testnet experimentation, and the recent Soroban smart contracts launch. The piece promotes the first episode of 'Hola Stellar' video series for beginners.

At Stellar House Miami, the Stellar Development Foundation hosted a panel discussion featuring Crossmint, Airtm, and MoneyGram on revolutionizing cross-border payments. The panelists highlighted how blockchain infrastructure enables instant settlement, faster than traditional finance, and discussed the key ingredients for building trust in financial systems: speed, predictability, and security.

Stellar's financial ecosystem expanded significantly in 2025, with stablecoin market cap growing 53% to $243.6M driven by PayPal's PYUSD launch, while RWA market cap surged 196% to $890.2M. U.S. Bank is testing custom stablecoin issuance on Stellar, and the Marshall Islands completed the world's first onchain universal basic income disbursement by a national government.

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.

BP Ventures' StellarMesh Anchor project has won a Stellar Community Fund #40 Build Award, recognizing its role in connecting global exchange liquidity to Stellar's onchain rails. The infrastructure enables instant, compliant funding for Stellar wallets via SEP-24/31 standards. This milestone validates the project's contribution to interoperability and real-world asset movement on Stellar.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced its facilitation of the world's first onchain universal basic income program in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, disbursing USDM1 (a sovereign digital bond) through the Lomalo wallet powered by Crossmint on Stellar.

AirTM, a cross-border payments network built on Stellar, reduces international payroll processing from days to minutes while saving companies 20-25% on fees. The company processes over $1 billion in stablecoin payments and serves 650,000 people across 192 countries by converting USDC to local currency in six minutes across 488 payment methods.

Faraday, Range's unified platform, streamlines stablecoin routing, risk management, compliance, and analytics compared to multi-vendor stacks like 0x, LI.FI, TRM Labs, and Dune. It offers a single API supporting chains including Stellar, reducing integration overhead and improving efficiency for fintechs like AcmePay. The article details advantages across routing, risk, data, and maintenance dimensions.

Stellar Meridian 2025 in Rio showcased the evolution of Stellar's blockchain into production-grade infrastructure for payments, identity, RWAs, and stablecoins. Key sessions highlighted open systems, regulatory progress, privacy innovations, and real-world applications from partners like MoneyGram, Nubank, and Ondo Finance. LATAM and Africa emerged as blueprints for financial inclusion and efficient money movement.

Stablecoins like USDC, integrated with Stellar and MoneyGram via Hana, are revolutionizing remittances in emerging markets by enabling near-instant, low-cost transfers convertible to cash. This addresses high fees and delays in traditional systems, particularly in Southeast Asia where remittances are projected to exceed $100 billion in 2025. The partnership provides financial stability and inclusion for unbanked populations.

Raja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, describes Stellar as invisible blockchain infrastructure that seamlessly integrates with existing financial systems to drive real-world financial inclusion. He highlights key partnerships with MoneyGram and Franklin Templeton, enabling crypto-to-cash services across 430K locations in 175+ countries. Stellar's focus is on scalability, institutional adoption, and making money accessible without users noticing the blockchain.

Hana Wallet partners with MoneyGram, powered by Stellar and USDC, to enable instant cash withdrawals of stablecoins in Southeast Asia. Users can convert USDC to local cash at over 350,000 MoneyGram locations without banks or exchanges. This bridges digital finance with cash-based economies for freelancers, families, and businesses.

Abroad announces a partnership with Lobstr, a leading Stellar network wallet, to enable seamless USDC stablecoin payments in everyday life across Latin America and Southeast Asia. Users can convert USDC to local currencies like Brazilian reais via QR code scans directly in the Lobstr app. This integration bridges blockchain with real-world spending, enhancing speed, security, and borderless transactions.

Beans integrated DeFindex to launch stablecoin yield features in 3 weeks, attracting $610K in deposits within 90 days. The partnership eliminated 11+ months of development work by using DeFindex's pre-built yield infrastructure instead of building in-house.

The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #39 round awarded $1,115,655 in XLM to 12 innovative projects building on the Stellar network. Highlights include QuillTip for microtipping, Stallion for decentralized bounties, and RendBit for cross-border banking in Africa. The round featured record voter participation and governance updates to Neural Quorum Governance for fairer voting.