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SDF platform team showcased five hackathon projects built on the Composable Data Platform, demonstrating faster, cheaper alternatives to Horizon for trade aggregations, fraud detection, contract indexing, browser-based ingestion, and validator analytics.

Developer demonstrates launching fireworks using Soroban smart contracts on Stellar, with a Node.js controller listening for blockchain events and triggering an Arduino-controlled arc igniter. Showcases Web3's potential to replace cloud services for IoT applications.

Stellar Development Foundation held its Q3 2024 quarterly webinar, highlighting 9 million network addresses, $606 million in real-world assets, $4.9 billion in total volume, and major partnerships with Stripe, MasterCard, and Paxos announced at Meridian conference.

The Give Hub, a Stellar blockchain-based crowdfunding app, is empowering unbanked communities in Latin America and Africa by funding schools, clean water systems, healthcare, and microloans. Blockchain transparency ensures donations reach their intended impact.

Actor Idris Elba discusses financial inclusion and creative empowerment in Africa with Stellar leadership, exploring how blockchain tools can help African filmmakers and creators access financing, distribution, and ownership opportunities.

Panel discussion on tokenization in financial markets, exploring use cases in collateral management, cross-border payments, and real-world assets. Speakers from Chainlink, BIS, and European banking discuss regulatory challenges, the path from experimentation to production, and the role of CBDCs versus private stablecoins in enabling frictionless asset transfer.

Blockaid, an on-chain security platform, announced its launch on Stellar with initial partners Freighter and Lobster. The platform detects malicious transactions, wallet drainers, and scams, having stopped hundreds of millions of attacks and protected billions in assets across multiple ecosystems.

The Stellar Development Foundation's Enterprise Fund hosted a panel featuring four portfolio companies: Tala, Shift Markets, Punto Red, and Cash Abroad. Each discussed their business models, how they leverage Stellar for financial inclusion in emerging markets, and their fundraising experiences with the SDF.

Cheesecake Labs presented their Hyperledger Cacti Stellar connector, enabling asset transfers between private blockchains like Bezu and the public Stellar network. The open-source contribution demonstrates cross-chain interoperability for institutions seeking to connect permissioned and public blockchain ecosystems.

Danell Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, opened Meridian 2024 discussing blockchain transformation focused on everyday financial services. She highlighted existing wallet innovations, real-world impact across remittances and humanitarian aid, and called for builders to solve unmet financial needs in underserved communities.

Tomer, CPO at Stellar Development Foundation, presented how Stellar has achieved product-market fit through real-world use cases like Decaf remittances, Stellar Aid Assist refugee dispersements, and Franklin Templeton's tokenized treasuries. He outlined the ecosystem's 1-to-10 scaling roadmap focusing on protocol optimization, data access improvements, and wallet enhancements.

Guillaume Feliciano, Chief Revenue Officer at Société Générale Forge, discusses the bank's tokenization strategy, MiCA-compliant stablecoin launch, and expansion to multiple public blockchains including Stellar. He emphasizes DeFi as the convergence point between traditional finance and crypto.

Panel discussion on institutional adoption of DeFi featuring leaders from Block Daemon, Zodiac Custody, Braille, and Stellar Development Foundation. Panelists discuss security standards, regulatory frameworks, staking infrastructure, and the coexistence of public and permissioned blockchains in institutional finance.

MoneyGram launched a non-custodial wallet enabling USDC transfers without fees, marking the next phase of its crypto integration strategy. Alex Bauer discusses how the wallet bridges fiat and crypto while maintaining regulatory compliance and banking relationships.

Onafreek (formerly MFS Africa) operates a pan-African payments network connecting 500 million mobile wallets and 200 million bank accounts across 40 markets, enabling real-time cross-border payments and financial inclusion through omni-channel infrastructure.

Stellar founder reflects on the network's 10-year journey, discussing early innovations like its consensus mechanism and distributed exchange, the importance of communication and continuous innovation, and how Soroban smart contracts now enable ecosystem builders to drive growth beyond the SDF.

Anthony Scaramucci discusses his transition from Wall Street to crypto, advocating for blockchain adoption and regulatory clarity. He emphasizes crypto's potential to eliminate intermediaries in financial transactions and calls for bipartisan U.S. policy on stablecoins and digital assets.

Paltalabs presented Create Soroswap, a React boilerplate for Soroban smart contract development, while Soneso showcased Flutter Wallet SDK for standardized anchor communication, and Argonavis introduced PHP Anchor SDK with free integration support for two projects at Meridian 2024.

PayPal executive Jose discusses the firm's crypto strategy, stablecoin adoption, and the shift from trading-focused use cases to cross-border B2B payments and remittances. He emphasizes velocity over market cap and predicts stablecoin deconcentration with clearer regulation.

Coins.ph CEO Wei Zhou discusses how the Philippines-based crypto exchange is using Stellar and stablecoins to enable remittances and financial empowerment for overseas Filipino workers, reducing remittance costs from 4-5% to 1-2% while expanding to other emerging markets.

MoneyGram executive Alex presents the company's evolution from traditional cash-to-cash money transfer to digital and crypto-enabled payments, highlighting MoneyGram Access on Stellar, USDC wallet launch, and partnerships with 162+ digital wallets globally.

Stellar Development Foundation core team lead discusses Soroban's mainnet activation, protocol upgrades including SecP256R1 for passkeys and BLS12381 for zero-knowledge contracts, and upcoming improvements like parallel execution and state archival to scale responsibly while maintaining decentralization.

Idris Elba and Stellar Development Foundation announce Akuna Wallet, a blockchain-based solution designed to help African creators monetize their work by removing banking barriers in West Africa. The wallet enables creators to receive payments in USDC and convert to local currency through partnerships with Chipper Cash and Bridge.

Multiple Stellar ecosystem projects pitched at Meridian conference, showcasing cross-border payments, DeFi infrastructure, supply chain financing, and wallet solutions built on Stellar.