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Donnell Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, interviews Jijinder Singh, Deputy Secretary General of IOSCO, about global regulatory frameworks for crypto assets. Singh discusses IOSCO's 18 recommendations focused on investor protection, market integrity, and addressing conflicts of interest in crypto service providers.

Aquarius submitted four smart contracts for Soroban mainnet testing and community feedback, including router, token, constant product, and stable swap pool contracts. The team aims to launch day one on Soroban mainnet with audits scheduled for next month.

David Mazier discusses why blockchain's real value lies in programmable money and atomic transactions across databases, not cryptocurrency. He argues that issued assets require reputation-based consensus like Stellar's proof of agreement rather than incentive-based models that create unsustainable fee structures.

Litemint hosted the sixth Legends tournament final, a competitive card game event on Stellar blockchain where winner Marlow defeated Junkhead 6-4. Prizes were distributed in USDC stablecoin with tradable NFT card rewards, showcasing Web3 gaming and true digital ownership.

BPV presents Anchor in a Box, a solution for launching Stellar anchors that enable fiat-to-crypto conversions. The presentation covers SEP standards (6, 10, 24, 31), wallet integration, KYC processes, fee management, and operational workflows for money transfer operators and exchanges.

The Stellar Development Foundation introduced the Anchor Platform, a middleware service that simplifies on and off-ramping for businesses. Flutterwave and BankSAR demonstrated production integrations enabling cross-border payments and fiat conversions across Africa and globally.

Three Stellar ecosystem wallets (Beans, Decaf, Boss Money) demonstrated integration with the Stellar Disbursement Platform, showcasing how organizations can send bulk payments globally to recipients who onboard seamlessly into crypto wallets for the first time.

ARF, a Swiss fintech licensed in 2019, launched a USDC-based credit line product to solve the cross-border payments liquidity problem by offering short-term, uncollateralized revolving credit to financial institutions, enabling same-day settlement and reducing pre-funding capital requirements.

Panel discussion on bulk payments in the Stellar ecosystem, featuring Circle, SDF's Disbursement Platform, UNICEF, and Ping. Speakers explored how blockchain enables faster, cheaper disbursements for aid, payroll, and creator payments while addressing regulatory challenges and last-mile delivery.

Zodiac Custody, Stellar, International Rescue Committee, and MoneyGram announced a partnership to enable charities to distribute aid globally using blockchain technology and stablecoins, solving critical gaps in humanitarian payment infrastructure.

Panel discussion featuring founders of three Soroban lending protocols: Slender (compounded lending), Trilobyte (cash flow financing for Cuba), and XLR Labs (tokenized T-bills and repo lending). Speakers discuss how lending primitives drive DeFi ecosystem growth and financial inclusion.

Tomer from SDF and Deanne from Cubist discuss WebAssembly's role in Soroban smart contracts, covering design decisions around WASM 1.0, interpreter vs. compiler tradeoffs, Rust as the primary language, and security considerations for WASM runtimes.

Panel discussion on AMMs and swap functionality in Soroban ecosystem featuring builders from Phoenix, Soroswap, and Comment. Panelists discuss liquidity incentivization strategies, developer challenges, security considerations, impermanent loss mitigation, and the role of oracles and indexers in DeFi infrastructure.

Beans app integrates with Blend protocol to enable users to deposit stablecoins in lending pools and earn yield while maintaining a traditional banking UX. The integration allows seamless conversion between fiat and digital currencies with zero fees.

Panel discussion on DAO governance solutions for Soroban featuring FXDAO, ElioDAO, CommunityDAO, and BlockScience. Panelists discuss native features, accessibility, and governance models tailored for emerging markets and community-driven protocols.

Stellar Development Foundation's fifth annual Meridian conference celebrates builders creating real-world blockchain solutions for financial inclusion. Speakers highlight ecosystem projects like Decaf, Flutterwave, MoneyGram, and 40 Soroban developers proving that blockchain can unlock human potential and democratize access to global finance.

Julian Martinez and Chad from AHA Labs demonstrate how to build DeFi applications on Stellar using Soroban smart contracts, covering liquidity pools, swaps, and TypeScript bindings for frontend integration.

Stellar ecosystem builders showcased 15+ projects at Meridian conference, including Comet AMM, EZA developer platform, Wavy P2P exchange, SubQuery indexer, Phoenix DEX, and infrastructure tools. Focus on DeFi primitives, real-world assets, and developer onboarding on Soroban.

Marcelo from Cheesecake Labs introduced Stellar Sandbox v2, an enhanced platform for asset tokenization that enables non-technical users to issue, manage, and distribute assets on Stellar without development expertise. The platform includes custodial wallets, role-based access control, treasury management, and upcoming Soroban smart contract integration, with the codebase being released as open source.

Elroy, a fintech platform built on Stellar, launches Elroy Global for free money transfers to Mexico with plans to expand to 30+ countries. The service offers high interest rates, virtual cards, and seamless international payments using Stellar's standardized protocols.

CFTC Commissioner discusses crypto regulation gaps, DeFi enforcement overreach, and the need for legislative clarity. Argues the agency should engage with industry on rulemaking rather than relying solely on enforcement actions that may shut down innovation.

Tyler Vanderhoeven, developer advocate at Stellar Development Foundation, demonstrates how to bridge Stellar assets into Soroban smart contracts using Stellar asset contracts, enabling seamless interoperability between the two layers.

Stellar founder explains why blockchain matters beyond cryptocurrency, detailing how Stellar's proof-of-agreement consensus enables secure issued assets with minimal fees, unlike proof-of-work and proof-of-stake chains that require expensive validator incentives.

Closing keynote from Meridian 2023 reflecting on Soroban's progress from preview to mainnet launch, ecosystem growth to 100+ projects, and the $100M Soroban Adoption Fund strategy for accelerating DeFi and financial inclusion.