Stellar Development Foundation aims to become the global payments standard within 5 years, with CEO Denelle Dixon highlighting CBDCs as a key opportunity. The foundation is pursuing government adoption of CBDCs on Stellar's network, though founder Jed McCaleb acknowledges this remains early-stage. Protocol 13 and Horizon 1.0 upgrades are planned for June.
At Consensus, Stellar Development Foundation outlined its vision to become the next global payment standard, positioning CBDCs as central to this strategy. CEO Denelle Dixon argued that outdated financial infrastructure and pandemic-driven stimulus delays demonstrate the need for blockchain-based solutions. Founder Jed McCaleb acknowledged that government CBDC adoption on public chains remains distant, as most governments prefer control over permissionless systems. However, he argued that private CBDC chains offer no advantage over existing digitized reserves unless they embrace openness. Stellar announced upcoming Protocol 13 and Horizon 1.0 upgrades for June validator voting, featuring optimizations for efficiency, scalability, multisig operations, and non-custodial key recovery.