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Marshall Islands government launched USDM1, a Treasury-backed token on Stellar, to distribute universal basic income on-chain. The initiative replaces physical cash transfers to remote populations across the scattered island nation, reaching 40+ merchants and enabling peer-to-peer transfers. IMF, SDF, and government officials discuss implementation and policy implications.

Tomer Weller, Chief Product Officer at Stellar Development Foundation, examines why institutional adoption of blockchain requires a nuanced approach to privacy. He argues that privacy is not binary but a spectrum, with different use cases requiring different guarantees. Current privacy solutions fall into two failure modes: all-or-nothing systems like privacy pools and L2s that lack institutional nuance, and permissioned chains that sacrifice the transparency institutions value. Stellar's response: maintain a transparent base layer while providing zero-knowledge cryptography building blocks for developers to build multiple privacy protocols. The X-ray protocol upgrade enables this. Two families of private payments emerge: confidential tokens hide amounts but show senders/receivers (suitable for payroll), and privacy pools hide both amount and parties (requiring compliance controls). Weller details a compliance menu including selective disclosure, non-selective disclosure, association sets, forced withdrawals, and clawback.

Stellar and Boundless explore how institutions can deploy capital on-chain while maintaining privacy. The ecosystem now offers multiple configurable privacy models—confidential tokens to hide amounts, privacy pools to hide identities—each with distinct compliance controls for regulated use.

Tomer Weller, CPO at Stellar Development Foundation, discusses configurable privacy as the key to institutional blockchain adoption. Privacy pools and confidential tokens enable selective data protection while preserving transparency, with implementations like Stellar Private Payments now live and expected institutional adoption in 2026.

Stanford researcher Lisa Nestor analyzed 41 million USDC transactions on Airtm to measure stablecoin performance in cross-border payments. The data shows 96% settlement within one hour, competitive fees for micropayments, and strong evidence that open networks deliver better outcomes than closed systems.

Arnald from Quantos Payments discusses their regulated e-money and stablecoin platform built on public blockchains. The Dutch-regulated fintech focuses on solving cross-border B2B settlement costs and liquidity challenges for corporates, platforms, and AI agents, recently becoming a Visa principal member.

MoneyGram CEO Anthony Suhu discusses modernizing the 80-year-old remittance company by integrating blockchain rails, stablecoins, and APIs to create instant, borderless payments. He emphasizes omni-channel strategy, customer choice, and open interoperable systems while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Stellar Community Fund hosts February 2026 Mainnet Demo Day featuring three live projects: Centive (cross-border payment infrastructure processing $20M+ volume), Rival Finance (Brazilian agricultural credit tokenization on Stellar), and ChimpDAO (NFT-linked physical merchandise with on-chain utility).

Khan from the Stellar Development Foundation explains Stellar Private Payments (SPP), a zero-knowledge proof-based privacy solution built by NetherMind that enables confidential transactions on Stellar while maintaining compliance through Association Set Providers.

Nethermind's Stellar Private Payments (SPP) brings zero-knowledge privacy to Stellar using Protocol X-Ray, enabling compliant private transactions through Association State Providers (ASPs) for enterprises and users.

Sven Walfels, co-founder of Monerium, discusses the first fully regulated e-money stablecoins issued on blockchain in Europe. Monerium offers on-chain euros and sterling backed by high-quality liquid assets, integrated with SEPA for seamless bank-to-wallet transfers and partnerships with MetaMask and Gnosis Pay for debit card spending.

Stellar processed 21.5 billion operations in 2025 with 10.3 million unique users, maintaining 99.99% uptime. Major institutions including Franklin Templeton, PayPal, and the Marshall Islands deployed real-world assets and payments on the network, with RWAs surpassing 1 billion and payment volume reaching 55.6 billion.

Stellar's 2025 year in review showcased major institutional adoption, with 55.6 billion in payment volume, 785 million in real world assets on-chain, and key deployments from Franklin Templeton, PayPal, US Bank, and the Marshall Islands. Protocol upgrades like Whisk and X-Ray enabled enterprise-grade scale and privacy.

Stellar's 2025 year in review highlights record adoption with 21.5 billion operations, 10.3 million users, and 1 billion in real-world assets. Major institutions like Franklin Templeton, PayPal, and the Marshall Islands deployed production systems on Stellar, while protocol upgrades WISC and X-Ray enabled enterprise-scale performance and privacy.

A Stellar ecosystem community event in Rio de Janeiro featuring multiple project pitches including Vansys (buy-borrow-pay app), Spectra (cross-anchor identity solution), Solos Swap (liquidity aggregator), Automated Finance (workflow automation), and discussions on Web3 regulation and RWA tokenization.

Panel discussion on redefining payments through stablecoins and blockchain rails. MoneyGram, AirTM, and Crossmint discuss cross-border remittances, settlement speed, and building accessible payment experiences on Stellar.

A podcast interview with AirTM CEO Ruben Galindo discusses the company's 11-year journey solving cross-border payment challenges using stablecoins on Stellar, from Venezuela's hyperinflation to enterprise payroll for 250,000 workers in 150 countries. AirTM excels in the 'last mile' by enabling fast, low-cost cashouts to 488 local payment methods. The conversation highlights Stellar's role, stablecoin advantages, and the need for patience in building generational fintech infrastructure.

Stellar Community Fund Mainnet Demo Day showcased six live projects: Arrel (institutional payments), Normal (synthetic assets), Trustless Work (escrow infrastructure), Attest Protocol (identity verification), Blux (wallet authentication), and Adamic (blockchain API aggregation).

U.S. Bank, Stellar Development Foundation, and PwC discuss a stablecoin pilot on Stellar designed for regulated financial institutions. The project highlights Stellar's bank-grade features: asset freezing and transaction reversal at the protocol layer, plus privacy controls for enterprise deployments.

Four infrastructure leaders discuss how payment cards bridge mainstream crypto adoption. Panelists from Polygon, Stellar, Visa, and Pi Squared share distinct strategies: Polygon focuses LATAM peer-to-peer volume; Stellar leverages batteries-included payments infrastructure; Visa integrates stablecoins into its merchant network; Pi Squared explores alternative non-blockchain payment infrastructure.

Pifo from AHA Company demonstrates Moonlight, a non-custodial privacy protocol for Stellar, showcasing the sandbox environment with account setup, quorum management, channel configuration, and private transactions between users arriving to testnet soon.

A documentary explores Argentina's economic crisis, hyperinflation, and heavy reliance on informal dollar markets and stablecoins like USDT and USDC. Despite economic improvements under President Milei, distrust in the formal banking system and high taxes drive continued adoption of stablecoins as a dollar proxy. The content reveals stablecoins bridging fiat and crypto in emerging markets facing currency instability.

Decaf and Etherfuse discuss their partnership building real-world financial services on Stellar in Latin America, focusing on sovereign debt tokenization and cross-border payments while emphasizing open ecosystem collaboration.

Stellar's CPO Tomer Weller discusses MoneyGram's integration of USDC cash-to-crypto conversion at 400,000+ agents globally. The video covers real-world stablecoin use cases from Ukrainian refugee aid to health worker payroll in Syria and examines why legacy distribution networks matter for blockchain payments.