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Argentina Builder Challenge concludes two-week virtual hackathon (Sept 12-27) with winners announced. 44 developers created 20 projects across Genesis (new ideas) and Scale (existing) tracks, with participants from Argentina, Peru, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Third-place winner: Changuito, an AI shopping assistant using Stellar smart contracts for USDC payments.

Turkish blockchain educator Aybars discusses his career path from founding blockchain education initiatives to becoming a Stellar ambassador and AI identity builder. He shares insights on ecosystem support mechanisms and his vision for scaling AI agents in e-commerce on Stellar mainnet.

Weekly show Onchain Africa interviews Koxy, co-founder of Choppaddi, a Stellar-based food and grocery delivery platform serving Africa. Discussion explores blockchain payments, creator economy infrastructure, and multi-currency transaction options for vendors and riders across West Africa.

Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator cohort showcase featuring 10 hand-selected teams building real financial infrastructure on Stellar. Teams span payments, remittances, wallets, FX, and trade finance, with demo presentations from founders including Remi (privacy-enabled remittances) and Yolot (multi-currency payments for global Africans).

Sabrina is an Indonesian developer and college student building Olio, a private USDC payment app for freelancers and creators. She discovered Stellar through the Indonesia Bootcamp and Rise In's support. Olio won first place in the payment track at the APEX Stellar hackathon, and the team is now shipping to real users.

Emin Kargöz (Kaptan), a developer from Turkey, traces his path into blockchain from initial curiosity about the technology to becoming an active Stellar ecosystem builder. Hackathons proved the turning point, offering deadline pressure and community that tutorials couldn't match. His project Subrosa, a privacy and coordination infrastructure on Stellar and Soroban, won the Build on Stellar hackathon in Istanbul. Now as a developer advocate, he mentors others.

Stellar Community Fund's August Mainnet Demo Day featured SCF-funded projects demonstrating live implementations. Decent Wallet showcased the first hardware wallet supporting XLM5 yields via Soroswap and Centora Vault. AgTrail presented end-to-end food traceability for Nigerian farmers with instant NGNC payments on Stellar's payment backbone.

Three developers from Kolkata transition from hackathon wins to shipping production. Sachindra, Shomadeep, and Orko discuss how mentorship, team collaboration, and obsessive focus on security move projects beyond demos to mainnet. Their lesson: solo builders often stall; teams that emphasize production-readiness from day one ship live products.

What does it take to scale payment apps in Brazil? Match PIX's adoption (76% daily), navigate VASP caps, and be serious about capital. A Meridian panel: how regulation consolidates players and attracts institutional investors.

Philippine developers Carl (Velo), Mark (Treasure), and Armie share their Web3 onboarding journeys and APAC Hackathon experience in a Rise In Builder Spotlight. They discuss how community support, mentorship, and hands-on hackathons helped them shift from blockchain skepticism to building live projects on Stellar.

The APAC Stellar Hackathon Grand Finale brought 30 finalists from Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam to pitch projects across three tracks—local finance, DeFi, and payments—competing for $60,000 in prizes.

A documentary exploring Vietnam's economic paradox: rapid growth built on a deliberately weak currency drives citizens to seek alternatives—gold shops and now cryptocurrency. The fourth-highest crypto adoption globally masks a speculative market. The government now licenses stablecoin infrastructure and courts blockchain partners including @StellarOrg to redirect demand into payments.