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The Marshall Islands launches USDM1, a sovereign bond on Stellar backed by US treasuries, solving correspondent banking gaps and enabling universal basic income distribution across its dispersed island population.

SDF's SoroPG Academy teaches AI-assisted Soroban smart contract development with human control at the center. The lesson: establish a baseline, ask AI for one narrow testable change, review the code, run tests, and only deploy once you fully understand the result. AI accelerates development without replacing developer responsibility.

SoroPG Academy Lesson 1 walks developers through the complete Soroban smart contract workflow, from writing Rust code to deploying on testnet. The browser-based tutorial requires no local setup or testnet funds, making it an ideal entry point for learning Soroban development.

SoroPG Academy tutorial on integrating agentic AI into contract development. Learn how to connect the Soroban IDE to external coding agents (Codex, Claude Code) via Model Context Protocol, enabling safer, more powerful AI-assisted workflows for smart contract work.

Stellar's president Jose Fernandez da Ponte outlines why stablecoins have matured from speculative assets to payment infrastructure. Drawing on his PayPal blockchain experience, he identifies regulatory clarity, institutional interest, and real payment volume as drivers, plus composability as the technical foundation for RWA and enterprise adoption.

Ken Sang (Crossmint) and Bojan Barakov (OpenSettling) discuss how AI agents and stablecoins are reshaping fintech infrastructure. From smart wallets to agent-to-agent transactions, blockchain is enabling machine-to-machine commerce at scale.

A panel at Bermuda Digital Asset Week examined how tokenized funds are transforming institutional capital management. Speakers from Franklin Templeton, Coinbase, and Apex Group discussed how blockchain infrastructure cuts costs while enabling new asset classes and institutional-grade efficiency.

Winners from the 2026 Istanbul Build On Stellar x RiseIn Hackathon discuss why they chose Stellar for their first blockchain projects. They praise the network's ease of use, developer-friendly architecture, and fast transaction settlement. The winners highlight how AI tools like Claude and Cursor accelerated their development process, and emphasize the importance of judge feedback for refining their ideas.

Jeremy Schwartz and Meredith Hennon from WisdomTree discuss how tokenization could disrupt asset management the way ETFs disrupted mutual funds. The asset manager's tokenized money market fund, WTGXX, has scaled to $700M in AUM with 6x year-over-year growth. They detail WisdomTree's multi-chain strategy (8 chains deployed, 5 EVM integrations in one day) and their focus on accessibility, making products available on Stellar with 24/7 subscriptions starting at $1 minimum.

SozuPay and ArcusX, two InstaAwards recipients, demonstrated Stellar smart account infrastructure and non-custodial escrow. SozuPay handles organization payments with passkey authentication and compliance configuration; ArcusX provides a freelance platform with smart contract escrow and portfolio management.

Stellar showed up at Stable Summit 2026 in New York: SDF's Tomer Weller joined CoinDesk for a fireside on scaling institutional adoption, pointing to this year's RWA growth on Stellar and MoneyGram's newly launched MGUSD stablecoin as proof that institutional issuers are arriving.

Stellar crosses $2.8B in tokenized real-world assets (3.5x growth since late 2025) and reaches 1,700 monthly active developers—the fourth-largest ecosystem—while DTCC announces its H1 2027 launch of tokenized assets on the network. Jose Fernandez de Ponte, SDF president, discusses institutional adoption advantages and competitive positioning.

Panel at Istanbul Blockchain Week examines institutional adoption of blockchain for cross-border payments. Key barrier: integrating new infrastructure with legacy systems at scale. Market makers discuss capital fragmentation, payment companies reveal treasury challenges, and infrastructure providers show how stablecoins solve operational pain.

A panel of fintech and financial leaders discusses how regulatory clarity, stablecoins, and tokenized securities are accelerating institutional adoption. While the Clarity Act and SEC rulemaking may take 12-18 months, institutions are shipping products now under existing law.

Panel at Istanbul Blockchain Week examines trust barriers blocking AI agents from accessing institutional capital. Experts discuss legal liability, security guardrails, on-chain infrastructure, and how low-cost blockchains enable autonomous financial systems.

MoneyGram CEO Anthony Suhu discusses the company's pivot to stablecoin rails. The global payments giant announced a partnership with Kraken allowing users to move crypto to fiat via MoneyGram's 500,000 locations in ~100 countries, powered by USDC.

Aid organizations in sanctioned regions use stablecoins to bypass broken financial infrastructure. OSUM pays Syrian hospital staff via Digibank's digital wallet and Stellar's bulk payment tool, cutting costs to 2% and delivery from months to minutes.

Denelle Dixon, Stellar's Chief Legal and Policy Officer, discusses MoneyGram's MGUSD stablecoin launch and the DTCC's Canton integration with Stellar. The interview covers institutional adoption through regulatory collaboration, on/off-ramp infrastructure, and tokenization. Distribution matters more to institutions than blockchain choice.

MoneyGram launches MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar, enabling self-custody for its 60M global customers. CEO Anthony Sohu and MZero's Luca Prosperi discuss the infrastructure strategy behind the modernization: unified payment rails, modular architecture with Bridge and Fireblock partnerships, and how instant 24/7/365 settlement reduces costs.

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw $3.2 billion in combined outflows over recent weeks, prompting media alarm. But analysts see this as normal capital rotation within a $100+ billion institutional market, not panic. Regulatory clarity on stablecoins remains the larger unlock for institutional adoption.

DTCC, the major financial market infrastructure handling $114 trillion in assets, partnered with Stellar Foundation to tokenize DTC-custodied assets including Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, launching H1 2027. Hosts discuss how traditional finance is adopting public blockchains, regulatory hurdles with SEC guidance delays, and the multi-chain future.

Crypto's political power play: Fair Shake PAC spent $8M on recent primaries unseating crypto critics, while DTCC integrates with Stellar and the regulatory landscape shifts.

Candace Kelly, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, discusses how Stellar is becoming financial infrastructure for the global economy. The interview covers the network's $2 billion in tokenized real-world assets, stablecoins' role in emerging markets, and the regulatory landscape. Kelly shares her journey from the Department of Justice to SDF, highlighting how Stellar enables financial inclusion through institutional partnerships.

Three fintech founders—Tiago from Revool, João from Picnic, and Rob from Pods—discuss how neobanks are scaling by hiding rather than promoting blockchain infrastructure. The winning formula: crypto under the hood. Dollar App succeeds where other platforms fail because it never mentions blockchain to users, making stablecoins as simple as traditional payments.