DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
The Stellar Development Foundation announced Stellar Meridian, its first sponsored conference, taking place November 4-5, 2019 in Mexico City. The event will bring together developers, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem projects to discuss financial inclusion, regulation, and Stellar's role in the future of finance.
Currency Matters joined IBM Blockchain World Wire, a real-time payments network built on Stellar protocol, enabling cross-border transactions across 50+ countries with access to stablecoins and XLM.
Grayscale Investments added Stellar Lumens to its professional investment fund, marking the ninth crypto-asset listing and opening access to accredited investors earning $200k+. The move reflects institutional interest in Stellar's cross-border payment infrastructure.
Stellar Development Foundation announces three major lumen distribution initiatives: the Stellar Community Fund for community-voted grants, updates to the Partnership Grant Program which has funded 34 companies, and launch of an Academic Research Program for blockchain research.
Blockchain wallet provider is distributing $125 million in Stellar lumens (XLM) to wallet holders, marking Stellar's first major airdrop partnership and an effort to onboard millions of new users to crypto.
The Stellar Development Foundation outlines its vision for financial inclusion, emphasizing how Stellar's blockchain infrastructure enables local fintech entrepreneurs to reduce costs, accelerate go-to-market speed, and access global markets. The post features three companies building inclusion solutions on Stellar: Seamless Money, FinClusive, and Wala.
The Stellar Development Foundation obtained Sharia compliance certification from the Shariyah Review Bureau, making Stellar the first distributed ledger protocol certified for Islamic finance in money transfer and asset tokenization. This enables Islamic financial institutions across the Gulf Cooperation Council and Southeast Asia to integrate Stellar technology into their compliant offerings.
The Stellar Development Foundation and Luxembourg House of Financial Technology published a 40-page white paper analyzing ICOs, covering technical elements, regulatory frameworks, use cases, and global regulatory developments to educate policymakers and industry leaders.
Stellar Development Foundation launched a Partnership Grant Program offering up to $2M USD per grant in XLM to incentivize development of high-impact projects, with primary focus on anchors and exchanges to promote financial inclusion.
Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb launched Lightyear.io, a for-profit company to help financial institutions integrate Stellar's open-source payments network. The move acknowledges that traditional banks are essential to building a global financial system.
Coins.ph, Flutterwave, ICICI Bank, and Tempo Money Transfer have integrated with Stellar, enabling near-free remittances and cross-border payments across Southeast Asia, Africa, and India. The Philippines now has 22,000 cash-out locations for Stellar-based transfers.
Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb is taking on a more public role after his co-founder's resignation, focusing on enterprise adoption. Barclays and Deloitte are building payment prototypes on Stellar's network to serve underbanked populations in Africa, with Nigeria as the initial target market.
Joyce Kim, co-founder of Stellar, resigned as executive director in May 2016, passing the role to co-founder Jed McCaleb while remaining as board chairperson. Kim cited slow legal changes and specialized product design as factors in her decision, planning to explore microfinance work in developing regions.
Stellar.org outlines a three-phase strategy to achieve financial inclusion: building the Stellar network infrastructure, establishing anchor partnerships to connect financial institutions, and creating a platform for developers to build financial services for underbanked populations.
Stellar partnered with Oradian, a fintech providing core-banking software, to launch instant money transfers across 200 microfinance branches in Nigeria, serving 300,000+ clients in rural areas with affordable, real-time payments replacing traditional cash delivery methods.
Stellar celebrated its first anniversary, growing from two cofounders to a 16-person team while launching the Stellar Consensus Protocol, building global partnerships, and establishing a thriving developer community across multiple continents.
The Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) introduces federated Byzantine agreement, a consensus mechanism that achieves decentralized control, low latency, flexible trust, and asymptotic security simultaneously. SCP enables a worldwide financial network where participants reach agreement without relying on centralized institutions.
Stellar.org introduces the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a federated Byzantine agreement mechanism designed for decentralized payments. SCP offers four key properties: decentralized control, low latency, flexible trust, and asymptotic security, with a new open-source codebase now available for peer review.
Stellar, a decentralized gateway for digital currency to fiat transfers founded by Jed McCaleb, officially launched with a native currency called 'stellar' distributed free to users. The platform aims to bridge fiat and digital currencies for mainstream adoption.