DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
Kik announced plans to migrate its Kin token from Ethereum to Stellar, citing Ethereum's scaling limitations and high transaction fees. CEO Ted Livingston stated Stellar's design is better suited for Kin's needs, with testing beginning by end of December and a potential Q2 rollout.
IBM and Stellar announced a partnership settling real cross-border payments using lumens as a bridge currency across Pacific currencies. The platform integrates private and public blockchain, with IBM handling transaction clearing while Stellar's blockchain conducts settlement.
Stellar, IBM, and KlickEx announced a blockchain-based cross-border payments solution now processing live transactions across 12 currency corridors in the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, and UK, dramatically reducing costs and settlement times.
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.
Tempo Money Transfer integrated with Stellar blockchain to enable remittances from Europe to the Philippines via Coins.ph, allowing customers to send funds using just a recipient's name and phone number with 3-second settlement times.
Stellar announced partnerships with ICICI Bank, Tempo Money Transfer, Flutterwave, and Coins.ph to build cross-border payment solutions using its blockchain infrastructure, targeting remittances and international money transfers with reduced fees.
Stellar cofounder Jed McCaleb discusses how banks are exploring blockchain partnerships to stay competitive, noting that understanding the technology and managing compliance remain the biggest hurdles for financial institutions adopting distributed ledger solutions.
Deloitte integrated with Stellar to launch a Digital Bank application enabling instant cross-border payments for consumers and businesses, with transactions resolving in around 5 seconds and plans for multiple financial institution partnerships by 2017.
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.
Stellar.org announced a lumen giveaway program for Bitcoin holders, reserving 19 billion lumens (19% of initial supply). Starting July 5, 2016, Bitcoin holders can claim lumens proportional to their BTC holdings through a claim page or participating exchanges.
A New York Observer investigation details alleged interpersonal conflicts between Ripple Labs and Stellar founders Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim, claiming the feud disrupted crypto adoption efforts at Wells Fargo and derailed a Stripe acquisition deal.