Stellar Ecosystem
News

A developer shares her firsthand experience winning a track at Casa Builder México 2025 hackathon, building a Stellar/Soroban smart contract project with a mixed Web2/Web3 team despite having no prior Rust or Stellar experience. She details the technical stack, timeline, challenges, and key lessons learned about participating in hackathons.

This article provides a deep technical exploration of Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA), the consensus mechanism used by Stellar and Ripple, contrasting it with Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake. It examines FBA's architecture, the philosophical differences between Stellar's bottom-up approach and Ripple's managed model, discusses inherent risks like bootstrapping trust and quorum centralization, and explores emerging applications beyond cryptocurrency.

Trustless Work participated in the Stellar Hackathon in Mexico City, hosted by the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation. Builders from five countries, including a dozen from Costa Rica, focused on accelerating stablecoin adoption in Latin America through workshops and mentorship on escrow-enabled flows. The event highlighted Latin America's growing role in programmable finance.

Stellar Lumens surged 14.3% to $0.293 on institutional volume following the release of Stellar Core v23.0.0rc2, though the rally reversed sharply to $0.2896 as short-term traders exited positions.

June 2025 marked significant growth for the Stellar ecosystem with major European engagement, landmark DeFi product launches, and powerful developer tools. Key highlights include Berlin and Istanbul blockchain weeks, the launch of Beans Earn with Defindex, PayPal's intent to bring PYUSD to Stellar, and new developer infrastructure from OpenZeppelin and Creit Tech.

Trustless Work is participating in OnlyDust OS Wave #1 from June 26 to July 6, offering high-impact tasks for contributors preparing for mainnet launch. Tasks include escrow viewer refactors, wallet analytics, smart contract optimizations, passkey integration, and backoffice enhancements on the Stellar blockchain. Contributors can join via OnlyDust to work on real smart contracts, UI features, and dev tools for the stablecoin economy.

Trustless Work has released an SDK MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration for Cursor, enabling AI-assisted development of escrow flows. The MCP allows developers to scaffold escrow integrations directly from their editor with autocomplete, type safety, and reduced friction.

Normal announces the hiring of skilled developer Niko Gorjan to strengthen its team and leadership structure. Niko's expertise is key to the upcoming launch of the Normal Protocol on the Stellar blockchain mainnet in August 2025. The protocol offers custom crypto indexes, trading of top 200 cryptocurrencies, and lending/borrowing without centralized exchanges.

Stellar released its 2025 developer roadmap, featuring upgrades to Lab 3.0/4.0 developer tools, Protocol 23 targeting 5,000 TPS, and enterprise payment features to position the network as a major DeFi and institutional blockchain.

The Stellar Community Fund published guidance on what makes successful grant applications stand out, based on feedback from round 36 panelists. The article outlines five key areas: clear project purpose, technical proof of execution, realistic budgeting, genuine community engagement, and proactive compliance planning.

Protocol 23 upgrade guide for Stellar developers and businesses, covering key dates, preparation steps, breaking changes, and release information for infrastructure, SDKs, and validators.

The Stellar Community Fund Kickstart #11, held in March 2025, was a five-day virtual program that accelerated 13 blockchain startups from 9 countries through design sprints focused on MVP development, UX, architecture, GTM, and SCF submissions. All participants received Kickstart Awards, with standout projects like XHIBIT, Vaquita, WYT Network, Peridot Finance, and Dobprotocol recognized for their innovation on the Stellar ecosystem. Participants praised the program's organization and mentorship.

Stellar is advancing its blockchain with a public roadmap emphasizing scalability, usability, and developer tools like Soroban optimizations, Freighter wallet, AI assistants Stella and Contract Copilot, and integrations with OpenZeppelin. It powers real-world assets with $522 million on-chain and $17 billion in volume across 70 countries. The ecosystem offers robust support via the Stellar Community Fund and production-ready infrastructure.

The Stellar Q2 testnet will reset on June 18 at 17:00 UTC, wiping all contracts, assets, accounts, and data. Simultaneously, Trustless Work v2.0 will launch on the main branch with major upgrades including multi-release escrows, API changes, and new escrow logic. Developers should prepare for breaking changes with upcoming guides and documentation.

Trustless Work launched v1 of its official NPM package (@trustless-work/escrow), enabling developers to integrate escrow infrastructure directly into their applications with minimal code. The release simplifies escrow deployment and is part of the project's roadmap toward mainnet launch.

May was a dynamic month for Stellar featuring major global events (Consensus in Toronto, Ledger Leaders Week in Mexico City), new DeFi adoption programs (Hana Wallet & Balanced rewards, Dogstar Protocol), and significant technical upgrades including Stellar Core's TPS nearly doubling to 2,032.

The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #35 round received 77 submissions and awarded $1,840,348 worth of XLM to 21 innovative projects. Funded initiatives span payments, DeFi, cross-chain infrastructure, wallets, and developer tools on the Stellar network. Highlights include AirGap's secure cold wallet, Wirex Pay's Visa-supported payment solution, and Cobo's institutional custody integration.

Tellus Coop explains why to learn blockchain with them, emphasizing a Latin American, collective approach with real projects. They highlight practical benefits like digital governance and decentralized projects. Stellar is chosen for its efficiency, financial focus, and active ecosystem, where Tellus contributes with open-source tools.

The Stellar Dev Diaries series follows the Freelii team's journey building a remittance chatbot on Stellar, from hackathon wins through securing Stellar Community Fund grants to mainnet launch. Episode 2 covers their pivot strategy, Telegram mini app development, and use of Stellar Anchors for on-ramping.

This article explains composability in DeFi—the ability to combine different protocols and smart contracts to create innovative financial products. It highlights how Stellar's existing features like its DEX, multi-asset support, and path payments enable developers to build connected applications, contrasting DeFi's permissionless, transparent approach with traditional finance's siloed systems.

The Stellar Community Fund Kickstart #10, held in March 2025, accelerated 32 blockchain startups from 16 countries through a five-day design sprint. 28 teams received $290,000 in XLM awards, with standout projects like Abokyh, Dayfi, and DeFarm recognized for their Stellar integrations. Participants praised the mentorship on Stellar tools, smart contracts, and GTM strategies.

The Stellar Dev Diaries series follows Freelii's journey from hackathon win to funded startup building on Stellar Network. Episode 1 features founders José Toscano and Joseph Anthony discussing their path to mainnet launch, including use of Soroban's PassKeys feature and Stellar Community Fund support.