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Ed from Axelar demonstrates secure cross-chain communication tools, including deposit addresses, interchain tokens, and contract messaging. Axelar supports 49 chains and enables decentralized governance across multiple blockchains through its permissionless validator network.

Deep technical overview of Soroban's architecture, covering the host-guest boundary design, value types, host functions, contract storage, and resource metering that enable secure, performant smart contract execution on Stellar.

Jisun from Vibrant demonstrates building an NFT smart contract on Soroban using Taylor Swift concert tickets as an example, covering contract initialization, minting, ownership checks, transfers, and testnet deployment.

Alex Cordero from the Stellar Development Foundation presented the Wallet SDK, a new developer tool that simplifies wallet integration with anchors by reducing implementation complexity from 291 lines of code to just 10 lines, while maintaining interoperability standards.

Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson discusses the launch of Benji, a tokenized money market fund on Stellar, and explains why blockchain technology is transforming asset management and financial services infrastructure.

Ran Goldie, SVP Head of Payments at Fireblocks, discusses the company's journey from 3 founders in 2018 to 650 employees and 1,900 clients by 2023, detailing how they achieved product-market fit by solving specific use cases for OTC desks and market makers before expanding into payments, tokenization, and CBDCs.

Soroban smart contracts launch keynote covering three pillars: technical design decisions, 100+ ecosystem projects building on Soroban with 40 presenting, and cash-to-DeFi integration unlocking real-world asset connections.

Tomer from SDF presented Soroban, Stellar's new smart contracts platform built on WebAssembly and Rust. The talk covered Soroban's architecture, security tooling including a new Audit Bank and Certora partnership, and live demos of DeFi applications like Blend lending protocol and Beans app enabling cash-to-yield access.

Stellar Development Foundation held its Q3 2023 quarterly review, highlighting Soroban's arrival on testnet with protocol 20, the successful Meridian 2023 conference in Madrid, Circle's EuroCoin launch on Stellar, and MoneyGram's plans for a non-custodial wallet. The network saw 7.6 million total accounts and 76 million payments in Q3.

BPV, a Stellar integration partner, presents a turnkey solution for financial institutions to issue on-chain mutual funds. Highlighting Franklin Templeton's success with their SEC-approved money market fund growing 5% monthly, BPV offers compliance, wallet infrastructure, and consulting to help other funds replicate this model on Stellar.

Fred from Lightmean demonstrates how to build Web3 games on Stellar using Soroban smart contracts, covering gameplay validation, NFT rewards, in-game currency management, and Freighter wallet integration with a live pool physics game demo.

ARF, a Swiss-regulated settlement banking platform, discusses its use of Stellar for B2B financing and short-term liquidity provision. The company has processed over 300 million in on-chain traffic in seven months and is expanding into DeFi protocols like Blend and Huma to offer receivables-based lending.

SDF and MoneyGram launch the MoneyGram Award program, offering up to $50,000 in marketing support to wallets and fintechs integrating with MoneyGram's 300,000 agent locations for cash-to-crypto on/off ramps. No consumer fees through June 2024, with five winners selected quarterly.

SDF Q2 2023 quarterly review covering Soroban smart contracts platform progress toward mainnet launch, MoneyGram access milestone reaching one year, Franklin Templeton's on-chain money fund surpassing $270M AUM, and ecosystem growth with 70+ projects building on Soroban.

Chad Ostrovsky from AhaLabs discusses smart contract developer tooling for Soroban, comparing Rust-based development approaches across Near, Soroban, and Cosmwasm. He explains Rain, an ABI system and interactive documentation tool, and explores the philosophy behind Soroban's no-std constraint and performance optimization.

Carol House, former White House NSC director for cybersecurity and digital assets, discusses her career spanning national security, FinCEN, and crypto policy. She explains how blockchain's public ledger benefits law enforcement, why regulation protects rather than crushes innovation, and why the U.S. remains critical for responsible crypto development.

Airtm, a Stellar-powered digital wallet and payments platform, demonstrates how it solves last-mile payments for the digital economy by enabling freelancers, content creators, and online taskers to receive earnings globally and cash out locally through 400+ payment methods, peer-to-peer matching, and direct fiat connections.

Cubist co-founders Fraser Brown and Riyadh Wabi discuss their cross-chain dApp development toolkit, the state of zero-knowledge proofs, and why Soroban's testing infrastructure sets a new standard for blockchain developer experience.

Franklin Templeton CEO discusses the Benji Money Market Fund built on Stellar blockchain, highlighting how tokenization enables new investment opportunities like fractional ownership of cultural assets and real-world assets, while emphasizing the importance of regulatory collaboration and public blockchain transparency.

Stellar Core developers discussed replacing the variable rent balance system with a fixed expiration ledger approach for state expiration. The new model simplifies user experience and downstream system integration by storing a single expiration ledger per entry instead of periodically deducting variable rent fees.

Stellar Development Foundation unveiled Stellar Aid Assist, a blockchain-based platform enabling organizations to distribute cash assistance to displaced people and vulnerable populations at scale. The system processes bulk payments via USDC and MoneyGram's global network, already deployed by UNHCR and International Rescue Committee in Ukraine.

Soroban design discussion on state expiration and storage. Team proposes unified storage interface combining temporary and restorable entries with rent-based model, automatic rent bumps on access, and optional manual bumps. Short-term entries (15 min) charged at lower rate than long-term (30 days) to incentivize temporary storage use.

Sergei Gurbanov, CEO of Axelar, discusses how the decentralized interoperability protocol connects multiple blockchains through a plug-and-play gateway model. Axelar is integrating with Stellar's Soroban smart contract platform and launching a virtual machine to scale cross-chain development.

Stellar Development Foundation's Q1 2023 quarterly review covering network growth to 7.3M accounts, $419M relevant asset transaction volume, Sorobon smart contract platform progress with two preview releases, and ecosystem initiatives including the $100M Sorobon Adoption Fund supporting developer adoption.