Watch + listen

Leaders from Itaú and B3 discuss asset tokenization strategy in Brazil: prioritizing fixed-income assets, building regulatory alignment with CVM, and implementing native corporate actions (dividends, voting, splits) for tokenized securities. The panel explores how institutional adoption depends on proving tokenization reduces systemic risk without requiring new regulatory frameworks.

A closing keynote from a major Stellar ecosystem event in Brazil delivers a strategic synthesis of institutional momentum. The speaker affirms the "Brazil moment" as real, positions regulation as a net unlock, and frames stablecoin and RWA adoption as still five minutes past midnight on day one. Key insight: institutional finance requires 100% correctness (not "move fast and break things"), and the barbell model—institutions on one side, developers on the other, blockchain in the middle—is the precondition for sustainable market growth.

At Stellar House São Paulo, SDF leadership discusses the regulatory moment catalyzing blockchain financial services adoption. With Stellar's RWA tokenization nearing $4B and nearly 4,000 active developers globally, the ecosystem pivots from proving tokenization is feasible to solving the institutional distribution bottleneck.

Etherfuse, Revo Finance, and OpenZeppelin discuss how financial advisors bring tokenized RWA products to institutional clients through trusted platforms, security audits, and Stellar's partnership ecosystem.

Franklin Templeton's Benji money market fund surged from under $600M to $2.5B on Stellar by tokenizing a regulated fund natively on-chain. The discussion covers how 50,000 transactions cost $1.13 instead of $75,000, yield accrual by the second, regulatory approval, and institutional adoption through exchange collateral.

Allium partners with SDF to launch Stellar Dashboard, an open-access analytics platform providing builders with real-time visibility into ecosystem trends. The dashboard surfaces network metrics, smart contract activity, stablecoin dynamics, and RWA adoption—enabling teams to validate markets, identify partnerships, and spot where builders are needed most.

Stellar's Q2 milestone: $3 billion in real-world assets, marking institutional adoption from both the financial infrastructure layer (DTCC selecting Stellar for tokenization) and the access-constrained end (MoneyGram launching MGUSD for 60 million customers). Developer ecosystem reached 2,968 active monthly builders, now the second-largest by developer count.

Three major institutions—MoneyGram (payments infrastructure), Figure (yield-bearing RWAs), and Range (treasury platform)—are now validators on the Stellar Network, marking a shift from application-layer participation to protocol-level security and governance roles. The moves signal institutional confidence in Stellar's readiness for large-scale financial operations.

Bitbond's no-code Offering Manager automates end-to-end compliant token issuance: configure offering terms (price, caps, discounts), onboard investors through KYC/AML, accept payments via bank transfer, card, or stablecoin, and issue tokens on close. One dashboard, no developers required.

Tomer, Stellar's Chief Product Officer, discusses the foundation's core strategy: real-world financial access through products, partnerships, and infrastructure. Key topics: Freighter wallet, Soroban smart contracts, MoneyGram's anchor network (400,000 agents), cash-to-DeFi yield flows, and why the DTCC partnership on RWA tokenization represents institutional adoption.

Institutional finance is moving on-chain at scale. This broadcast unpacks the market data: stablecoins now settling $7 trillion monthly, tokenized assets crossed $30 billion, and yield products are attracting serious institutional capital. On Stellar specifically, real-world assets hit $3.2B and Bolts, a suite of institutional vaults, launched today via the Stellar DeFi hub.

Quan Le, Manroy, and Tuan from Untangled describe how their platform brings institutional portfolio intelligence to Stellar's DeFi. They built Untangled Vault (the first institutional vault on Stellar), OctoLend (lending market), and OctoPos (multi-chain DeFi position API and risk monitoring tool). After the February Blend hack ($10M Oracle exploit), they built real-time risk monitoring APIs that watch lending pools for anomalies and alert curators. Institutional curators like GAMI Capital and State Capital use their vault to allocate across Stellar and EVM chains simultaneously.

Dave Taylor, CEO of Etherfuse, argues that stablecoins alone are insufficient for efficient DeFi in non-Western economies. His solution: yield-bearing stablecoins backed by sovereign debt (Mexican CETES, Brazilian SELIC), providing competitive stores of value and enabling balanced AMM liquidity across local and foreign assets.

Etherfuse founder Dave Taylor on why emerging markets need yield-bearing stablecoins denominated in local currencies. Tokenizing treasury bonds like Mexican CETES and Brazilian SELIC securities creates inherent yield without USD exposure or DeFi risk.

Stellar's RWA market cap exceeded $3 billion. This week's developer meeting features Gaian, a Southeast Asia payment infrastructure startup that uses USDC on Stellar to connect crypto wallets directly to local banking rails, enabling merchant payments and cross-border transfers that settle into real bank accounts. Gaian demonstrated their V2 API and self-serve onboarding dashboard.

SDF's DeFi lead explains how Stellar's partnership with Centrifuge enables tokenized real-world assets to unlock yield in DeFi while giving emerging markets unbiased access to institutional lending and financial services.

Faraj, Stellar's senior advisor for the Middle East, discusses how the region is embracing blockchain faster than crypto skeptics expected. The UAE's open regulatory stance, combined with institutional wins like Franklin Templeton cutting money-market costs 99%, positions Stellar to lead on RWA tokenization and cross-border payments through 450,000+ MoneyGram locations.

Abraham Cobos discusses Bando's treasury management platform for Mexican companies, which abstracts blockchain complexity to enable investment in tokenized CETES. He outlines competitive modes, the acceleration of AI-driven development, and strategic decisions to maximize focus across Bando and partner initiatives.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.