DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
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.
Jed McCaleb, creator of Stellar, discusses the project's 2018 emergence as a mature blockchain platform after years of obscurity, highlighting partnerships with IBM and Blockchain.com, the Chain acquisition, and his vision for Stellar as a payments protocol connecting financial institutions.
Novatti launched the Novatti AUD Utility Token on Stellar Network, a one-to-one AUD-backed stablecoin. As the first AUD anchor on Stellar, Novatti enables instant AUD payments and settlements with access to global foreign exchange via the Stellar Network.
Stellar and Ripple, both born from the same 2014 fork, are competing to replace SWIFT in cross-border payments. Ripple secured Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank while Stellar partnered with IBM on Blockchain World Wire, but both face a bear market downturn.
IBM has launched Blockchain World Wire, a cross-border payment solution built on Stellar that reduces costs and speeds up international transactions by converting currencies to digital assets through the World Wire API.
IBM Blockchain World Wire, built on Stellar's protocol, launched as a near-real-time cross-border payments system. The platform uses digital assets to bridge fiat currencies and promises faster settlement with reduced transaction costs for financial institutions.
IBM and Stronghold launched Stronghold USD, a dollar-backed stablecoin on Stellar, enabling businesses and asset managers to conduct faster, cheaper cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlements.
The article explores Stellar's federation system for human-readable addresses like anthony*tempo.eu.com, which simplifies payments compared to raw public keys. It discusses QR codes, URIs similar to Bitcoin's bip 0021, and compatibility among Stellar wallets like Lobstr and Papaya. Smart anchors like Flutterwave integrate federation for bank account validation.
Kik launched a crypto-economy allowing users to earn and spend Kin tokens through the Kin Marketplace Beta. Users can earn Kin by completing quizzes, tutorials, and polls, then spend it on premium app themes. Kin operates on its own blockchain forked from Stellar, enabling zero-fee transactions.
Kik's Kin Foundation announced it will fork Stellar to create its own blockchain for the Kin token, eliminating transaction fees entirely to enable micropayments. The move trades some decentralization for zero-cost transactions, using federated nodes run by ecosystem partners rather than Stellar's validator model.
Kik announced its kin token will operate on both Ethereum and Stellar blockchains simultaneously using atomic swaps. Stellar will handle transactions with faster confirmation times and lower fees, while Ethereum maintains liquidity, allowing the messaging app to scale its cryptocurrency payments system.
Stellar Development Foundation released a formal specification for adopting Lightning Network technology to improve transaction scalability. The roadmap targets testnet launch by April 1 and production implementation by autumn, addressing demands from partners like Kik and IBM.
Stellar Development Foundation invested in Keybase, a cryptography startup co-founded by OKCupid creators, to build person-to-person cryptocurrency payments using Stellar's lumens blockchain with near-zero fees.
Mobius Network raised $39 million in an ICO on Stellar, hitting its hard cap in just two hours. The startup chose Stellar over Ethereum due to speed, cost, and security concerns, positioning itself to make crypto integration easy for traditional tech companies.
Stellar's 2017 year-in-review highlights 128 merged pull requests, smart contract functionality, IBM partnership with 12 currency corridors, and growing ICO adoption including Mobius and Smartlands. The foundation emphasizes that Stellar's proven performance metrics (1000 ops/sec, 4.96s settlement) position it as a leading global payment protocol.
Mobius Network raised $35 million in a token presale on Stellar, exceeding its $25 million goal. The smart contract platform plans to facilitate machine-to-machine micropayments and will launch its full ICO on January 18, 2018.
Pundi X, a cryptocurrency POS provider, partnered with Stellar to become an Indonesian Rupiah anchor on the network, enabling faster and cheaper cross-border payments while supporting XLM in its retail payment platform.
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 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.
Stellar.org announced a second lumen distribution program offering 16 billion lumens (16% of initial supply) to bitcoin holders, with claims opening June 27, 2017. The giveaway reflects Bitcoin's influence on Stellar's design and aims to build community ownership of the network.
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.
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 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.
