July was a landmark month for Stellar, featuring new SDF leadership appointments, major integrations with Visa for stablecoin settlement, and significant ecosystem advances in DeFi, cross-chain communication, and developer tooling. The network celebrated its 11th birthday while the community engaged in global hackathons and grant programs.
July marked a transformative month for the Stellar ecosystem with multiple major developments. The Stellar Development Foundation appointed Jose Fernandez da Ponte as President of Growth and Jason Chicola as Chief Marketing Officer, bringing extensive fintech and marketing expertise. Visa integrated Stellar into its Visanet settlement network to support stablecoins like EURC and PYUSD, a significant TradFi adoption milestone. Boundless launched "The Signal," enabling zero-knowledge proofs of Ethereum's finalized blocks to be verified on Stellar for trustless cross-chain communication. The DeFi sector expanded with Figure teasing a major RWA integration, Blend removing US geoblocks, and multiple wallets introducing gas-free transactions. Hardware wallet support grew with XLM added to Trezor and AirGap enabling air-gapped cold storage. The network celebrated its 11th birthday, while the community awarded 2 million XLM across 23 projects in SCF Round 36 and hosted multiple global hackathons and summits.
