DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
Stellar Development Foundation delayed its Protocol 20 upgrade beyond Jan. 30 after discovering a bug in Soroban smart contracts software. Six of seven tier-1 validators signaled support for postponement, likely preventing the upgrade from reaching quorum.
The Stellar Development Foundation has decided to disarm its validators and postpone the Protocol 20 upgrade scheduled for January 30, 2024, following ecosystem concerns about a discovered bug in Stellar Core v20.1.0 affecting fee bumps for Soroban transactions.
The Stellar Development Foundation organized the Workshop on Heterogeneous Trust in Distributed Systems (HTDS) in October, bringing together 30 researchers to explore consensus mechanisms where validators independently choose which peers to trust—a key feature of Stellar and other networks.
Educational explainer on Stellar's Proof-of-Agreement consensus mechanism, using real-world analogies to explain how quorums, slices, and topens enable decentralized agreement without proof-of-work or proof-of-stake.
The Stellar Development Foundation released a comprehensive paper titled 'The Case for Open Systems: Creating an Interoperable, Integrated World,' exploring the historical context, principles, and real-world applications of open systems in fostering innovation and equitable technology access.
The Stellar Development Foundation submitted comments to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on blockchain sustainability standards under the MiCA regulation, highlighting the Stellar network's environmental efficiencies and promoting the use of existing assessment methodologies like the Blockchain Sustainability Framework developed with PwC.
Stellar Community Fund launches SCF 5.0 with Neural Quorum Governance, a reputation-based voting mechanism built on Soroban. The fund deployed $10M to 130+ projects in 2023 and introduces streamlined Activation and Community Awards up to $50K and $100K respectively.
The Stellar Development Foundation published 'A Practical Framework for Decentralization,' a policy paper that provides a structured approach for evaluating and measuring decentralization in blockchain networks. The framework addresses how policymakers and regulators can assess decentralization across network structure, failure resistance, and decision-making processes.
Tajinder Singh, Deputy Secretary General of IOSCO, discusses global regulation and standards for digital assets in a podcast interview at SDF's Meridian conference. He emphasizes investor protection, market integrity, and coordinated regulatory approaches across jurisdictions.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) has launched its fifth iteration with major upgrades including Neural Quorum Governance, a new reputation-based voting mechanism built on Soroban, and a redesigned website with improved transparency and user experience. The updated award structure now offers Activation Awards (up to $50K) for new projects and Community Awards (up to $100K) for continued development.
This article explains the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a Proof-of-Agreement mechanism that enables Stellar to achieve fast, energy-efficient consensus without mining. It compares SCP to other consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake, and details how Stellar's transparent, node-based validation process works.
The Stellar Development Foundation's Policy team met with EU stakeholders during the publication of the landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. The SDF is now engaged in helping shape the technical implementation and definition of decentralization within the new framework.
Stellar Development Foundation CEO reflects on four years of leadership, noting how blockchain has matured from speculation-driven hype to product-focused innovation, with stronger regulatory engagement and industry leadership now driving meaningful progress.
FXDAO announces it is the first legally incorporated DAO on the Soroban network, providing legal recognition to the project. They are developing a governance contract to manage all other protocol contracts, ensuring community approval for changes. The protocol is nearing completion and ready for deployment on Soroban once the network launches.
FxDAO critiques traditional DAO governance models like 'more shares, more votes' for favoring whales, insiders, and early participants, proposing a novel system combining modified democratic voting, quadratic voting, and anti-spam measures. Key features include locking tokens for proposals and votes that redistribute to participants, human verification to prevent sybil attacks, and high-threshold democratic votes for structural changes. This aims to balance fairness, participation, and security within the Stellar ecosystem.
The Stellar Development Foundation and ecosystem members gathered in Rome for Meridian 2022, their fourth annual conference. Themed around Leonardo da Vinci's 'Urgency of Doing,' the in-person event brought together the community to discuss solutions to pressing problems and left attendees motivated to take action.
Stellar Development Foundation's Chief Legal Officer Candace Kelly praised Senators Lummis and Gillibrand's Responsible Financial Innovation Act as a bipartisan framework for crypto regulation, calling it a milestone for establishing clear legal guardrails that balance innovation with consumer protection.
Aquarius announces ICE tokens, a new mechanism for AQUA holders on Stellar to freeze their tokens and receive boosted liquidity rewards and enhanced voting power. By locking AQUA via the locker tool, users gain four non-transferable ICE tokens (ICE, upvoteICE, downvoteICE, governICE) that increase yields on SDEX/AMM and enable simultaneous use in liquidity and governance voting. ICE tokens melt linearly over the lock period, up to three years, with voting power scaling up to 10x.
Deep dive into Stellar's native multi-signature feature, exploring how m-of-n multisig enables advanced use cases like multi-party consensus, pre-authorized transactions, commitment schemes, and proof-of-work incentives without smart contracts.
The Stellar Development Foundation partnered with PwC US to create a blockchain sustainability assessment framework. Applying it to Stellar, they found the network uses just 481,324 kWh annually with 173,243 kg CO2 emissions, equivalent to 33.7 U.S. homes. SDF committed to offsetting the network's historical carbon footprint through carbon dioxide removal.
Aquarius Governance v2.0 launches with major upgrades including a mandatory discussion phase, editable proposals, redesigned fees, vote lock periods, and improved UI. These changes address low participation and other issues from v1.0, built on the Stellar blockchain via SDEX and AMM integrations. The system now encourages better proposals and early voting.
Stellar Protocol 19 upgrade is scheduled for June 8, 2022. Node operators and developers must update Stellar Core, Horizon, and all SDKs before the network upgrade to avoid losing sync or breaking integrations.
Aquarius introduces native 'Bribes' feature on the Stellar blockchain, enabling projects to reward AQUA holders for voting on liquidity markets without custom development. Bribes are set up via a simple interface at vote.aqua.network/bribes, using any Stellar asset with a minimum value equivalent to 100,000 AQUA. Distribution begins February 28th, with a 10M AQUA launch bonus for new markets.
Aquarius Governance is a decentralized system launched in November 2021 for AQUA token holders within the Stellar ecosystem to propose and vote on protocol changes. It features a 7-day discussion phase, fees for creation and publication that are burned for deflation, and a 10% quorum requirement. Successful proposals are executed by the Aquarius Signers Guild.
Aquarius announces the Signers Guild to decentralize control over key AQUA wallets on the Stellar network, using native multisignature capabilities with up to 20 community members. The guild will manage 75%+ of uncirculated AQUA supply, including liquidity rewards, airdrops, and DAO funds, requiring majority approval for transactions. This initiative supports Aquarius's goals of enhancing SDEX and AMM liquidity through community governance.
The Stellar public network successfully upgraded to Protocol 18 on November 3, 2021, adding native support for automated market makers (AMMs) and liquidity pools. The upgrade required validator consensus and includes breaking changes to operations, assets, and trade precision.
Protocol 18 upgrade vote on Nov 3rd will bring automated market maker (AMM) functionality to Stellar. SDF collaborated with ecosystem projects like Settle Network, Ultra Stellar, and Stellarport.io to ensure AMM features launch immediately upon validator approval, democratizing liquidity provision and enabling new financial services use cases.
YieldBlox announces updates to its YBX airdrop due to bot activity, introducing day-zero staking with a 10x multiplier for genuine users and staggering payouts over six weeks. The testnet beta saw over 472,000 YBX farmed, revealing key insights into user strategies and protocol improvements on Stellar. Upcoming changes include UX enhancements, smart contract fixes, and mainnet launch by late November.
Stellar Development Foundation shares how the ecosystem accelerated Automated Market Maker (AMM) development for Protocol 18 by involving developers early with API specs, mock environments, and Futurenet testing, enabling simultaneous product launches upon network upgrade in November.
