Louisa from Stellar Development Foundation's BD partnerships team discusses key ecosystem partnerships including Coinbase, Fireblocks, and OKCoin, and explains the strategy to expand Stellar's utility beyond payments into DeFi and tokenized assets.
At South by Southwest, Louisa, who leads partnerships for crypto exchanges, custodians, and applications on Stellar, shares details about major partnerships featured on the Stella Lounge poster. Key partnerships include Coinbase for broadening stellar asset support, Fireblocks as critical infrastructure enabling two-week token integration, and OKCoin as the first U.S. exchange supporting USDC on Stellar. The BD team's strategy focuses on moving beyond on-ramp/off-ramp payments to enable crypto-native companies to build on Stellar and create circular economies where users can spend and earn yield on Stellar assets. Tribal Credit, a portfolio company of Stellar's enterprise fund, exemplifies this approach by integrating USDC on Stellar for Latin American SMBs. Future DeFi opportunities depend on Stellar's smart contract layer development.