Stellar core developers discuss Soroban smart contracts launch, scalability roadmap, governance challenges, and state management. Key topics include extensibility through Soroban, L1 optimization before L2 solutions, fee metering complexity, and ledger state expiration.
At a Stellar ecosystem panel, core developers Tomer Weller and Jed McCaleb discuss major protocol changes and technical roadmap priorities. Soroban smart contracts launched on FutureNet, enabling extensibility by allowing developers to build financial instruments outside the core protocol rather than requiring protocol upgrades. The team emphasizes Stellar's batteries-included philosophy, with Soroban contracts 100x smaller than comparable implementations. On scalability, Stellar has significant L1 headroom before needing L2 solutions like rollups; current network handles 150 TPS with artificial limits at 1000 ops per ledger. Fee metering for smart contracts is complex, requiring accurate correlation between compute resources and gas costs. State growth poses long-term challenges; proposals include state expiration and archiving with tombstones. Governance remains decentralized through validator voting on protocol changes. Starlight payment channels reference implementation is available. The team aims for Stellar to become a de facto global payment network with financial inclusion.