Stellar Ecosystem
News

This article explains what anchors are on the Stellar network—organizations that bridge traditional banking systems to Stellar, enabling users to exchange fiat currency for digital assets. It covers anchor types, benefits, and how to become one through the Anchor Platform.

The Stellar Newsletter highlights upcoming events like Meridian 2023 in Madrid with Idris Elba, MoneyGram's USDC case study on Stellar, and Coinbase's integration with USDC on the network. It covers improvements to the Anchor Directory, wallet on/off-ramp integrations, Soroban infrastructure projects, and a new Soroban security bug bounty. Developer updates include proposed transaction changes and SCF submission best practices.

Soroban Preview 10 introduces new State Expiration logic to address blockchain bloat issues, along with Rust SDK changes and clearer smart contract limits. July focused on refactors rather than new features, including rethinking governance token distribution. A new Stable Liquidity Pools contract for stablecoins is in development for future deployment.

The Stellar Community Fund spotlights four SCF-awarded projects enhancing Soroban: Reflector (price feed oracle), Chainlink Oracles Relayer (VRF proxy), Elio DAO (decentralized governance), and Anchain.ai's Smart Contract Catalog (developer templates).

Tech Talks with Tomer Episode 3 Season 2 features Chad Ostrowski from Aha Labs discussing smart contract development across NEAR, Soroban, and CosmWasm. The video series hosted by Tomer Weller, VP of Product at @StellarOrg, explores innovations in blockchain engineering.

Soroban is Stellar's smart contract platform launching on mainnet, combining Rust and WebAssembly to enable DeFi applications while leveraging Stellar's 8-year track record in payments and anchor network for global financial access.

Carole House, former White House cybersecurity director, discusses crypto's role in financial crime investigations, regulatory enforcement, and the push for an enabling US regulatory environment for digital currencies.

EU regulators finalized MiCA crypto regulation and are working on a Data Act that could impose problematic requirements on smart contracts built on public blockchains, potentially hindering DeFi development across Europe.

Coinbase now supports USDC deposits and withdrawals via Stellar, enabling millions of users to access faster, low-cost digital dollar transactions with near-zero fees and 5-second settlement times across 180+ countries.

Stellar Ramps enables digital wallets to connect to a global network of anchors for on and off-ramp services through standardized integrations, allowing seamless fiat-to-crypto conversions across 180+ countries without custom builds per anchor.

The Stellar Development Foundation explains why on and off-ramps are critical infrastructure for crypto adoption, highlighting how they enable conversion between fiat and digital currencies. SDF emphasizes that accessible ramps are essential for financial inclusion, especially for the 2 billion unbanked workers globally who rely on cash.

Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, which uses Stellar blockchain for record-keeping, now has over $290 million in assets under management. The firm is exploring blockchain's potential to transform capital markets through tokenization and smart contracts.

Argentina's economic instability and poor official exchange rates drive citizens to seek better alternatives for currency exchange. Beans, a non-custodial wallet on the Stellar blockchain, uses stablecoins like USDC to enable tax-free, market-rate conversions between USD and ARS, often surpassing the blue dollar rate. This allows faster, cheaper cross-border transfers with added features like free transactions and interest-bearing savings.

Mary Saracco, Co-Founder and CFO of Latamex, shares her founder journey building Latin America's largest fiat gateway on Stellar. Her experience at the World Bank and frustrations with cross-border banking friction inspired her to create blockchain-enabled financial services for her home region.

Soroban, Stellar's native smart contract platform, learns from Ethereum's design mistakes to offer better developer experience. Key improvements include native XLM token integration without wrapping, built-in event emissions, re-entrancy attack prevention, checksummed addresses, and single-transaction token transfers.

OG Technologies has sponsored Public Node's Tier 1 Stellar validator node Hercules, covering its hardware costs. This marks them as the second business sponsor for Public Node. The sponsorship highlights growing interest in the Stellar blockchain for Web3 solutions.

An overview of the Stellar network, its foundation, and thriving ecosystem. The article explains Stellar's blockchain technology, the Stellar Development Foundation's role in supporting growth, and highlights real-world applications across various sectors.

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.

Source of Tales releases early access for Windows, Linux, and Android, featuring Stellar wallet login via Albedo. Funded by Stellar Community Fund #10 grant from Stellar Development Foundation, it implements blockchain-based authentication using a custom Mana Stellar Bridge. Further Stellar integrations for character data storage are planned.