Stellar Ecosystem
News

Pavel Matveev of COCA, a non-custodial stablecoin-native wallet built on Stellar, is featured in the Stellar Community Fund Spotlight series. COCA received a $50K SCF grant and a $1M Series A investment from SDF to integrate USDC support and solve Web3 security and usability challenges for mass-market adoption.

Hana Wallet partners with MoneyGram, powered by Stellar and USDC, to enable instant cash withdrawals of stablecoins in Southeast Asia. Users can convert USDC to local cash at over 350,000 MoneyGram locations without banks or exchanges. This bridges digital finance with cash-based economies for freelancers, families, and businesses.

Stellar, LOBSTR, and Mercuryo launched a campaign offering 5% USDC cashback (up to $50) when users buy stablecoins via Mercuryo on Stellar through LOBSTR Wallet, aiming to shift crypto from holdings to active payments.

Abroad announces a partnership with Lobstr, a leading Stellar network wallet, to enable seamless USDC stablecoin payments in everyday life across Latin America and Southeast Asia. Users can convert USDC to local currencies like Brazilian reais via QR code scans directly in the Lobstr app. This integration bridges blockchain with real-world spending, enhancing speed, security, and borderless transactions.

The article explains the lifecycle of Trustless Work escrows on blockchain, detailing six phases from initiation to dispute resolution. It highlights how programmable trust, roles, and on-chain immutability ensure transparency, accountability, and auditability in payments. This structure benefits businesses, enterprises, and developers by replacing blind transactions with verifiable actions.

The Stellar Development Foundation joined six other major blockchain projects to form the Blockchain Payments Consortium, aiming to establish common standards for cross-chain stablecoin payments and bridge traditional finance with blockchain infrastructure.

Stellar's Q3 2025 showed strong ecosystem growth with 1B+ operations processed, $562M RWA market cap, and 71% DeFi TVL growth. Major institutional partnerships including Visa, PayPal, and MoneyGram expanded adoption, while developer activity surged 37% YoY and smart contract invocations hit 1M daily.

Abroad participated in Stellar's Meridian 2025 conference in Rio de Janeiro, showcasing partnerships and real-world stablecoin payments in Latin America. Key highlights included the native issuance of PayPal's PYUSD on Stellar, HackMeridian innovations, and Abroad's launches with ZyptoApp and BeansApp. The event demonstrated Abroad's growth with 66 monthly active users and over 910 transactions on Stellar.

The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #39 round awarded $1,115,655 in XLM to 12 innovative projects building on the Stellar network. Highlights include QuillTip for microtipping, Stallion for decentralized bounties, and RendBit for cross-border banking in Africa. The round featured record voter participation and governance updates to Neural Quorum Governance for fairer voting.

Visa is expanding stablecoin support to four new stablecoins on four unique blockchains, enabling banks to mint and burn them via its tokenized asset platform. The company already supports USDC, EURC, PYUSD, and USDG on Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, and Avalanche. This move highlights Visa's growing focus on stablecoins for cross-border payments, with stablecoin-linked card spending up fourfold year-over-year.

Stronghold's SHx utility token launched on Kraken exchange, marking its first U.S. listing. The token powers payments, settlements, and governance on Stellar, with new multi-chain capabilities via the SHx Bridge connecting Stellar and Ethereum through Axelar.

The Stellar i³ Awards 2025 recognized three standout projects at Stellar Meridian: Decaf won Impact for its non-custodial stablecoin app with 50k users, Etherfuse won Innovation for tokenized government treasuries and peso stablecoins, and DeFindex won Interoperability for its plug-and-play DeFi API for wallets.

This article analyzes McKinsey's 2025 Global Payments Report, highlighting stablecoins like USDC and PYUSD on the Stellar network as key to future payment rails amid margin compression, rail fragmentation, and AI-driven edge intelligence. It outlines practical applications for remittances, merchant settlements, B2B treasury, and agentic commerce. Stellar's low fees, Soroban smart contracts, and MoneyGram integrations position it as a pragmatic, programmable settlement layer.

WisdomTree launched a physically backed Stellar Lumens ETP with a 0.50% fee on SIX and Euronext, with Xetra listing planned for Oct. 15. The product provides institutional-grade exposure to XLM's spot price across European exchanges.

Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon warns that blockchain risks repeating history by becoming controlled by corporate monopolies rather than remaining open infrastructure. She argues for permissionless networks like Stellar over closed private blockchains that concentrate power and extract value.

Stellar processes an average of 252k USDC transactions daily, totaling nearly $50 million in volume, supporting both microtransactions and institutional flows. Analysis reveals EMEA-aligned transaction peaks, whale-dominated volume, and growing cross-chain activity via bridges like Decaf to Solana and Base. The network also faces scam token risks, but excels in real-world stablecoin money movement.

Abroad announces a strategic partnership with Zypto to enable instant crypto payments in Brazil using stablecoins like USDC. Users can pay via PIX QR codes or numbers, with instant settlement in Brazilian reais directly to recipients' accounts. Zypto's ecosystem, including its wallet and payment tools, integrates with partners like Stellar for seamless crypto-to-fiat usability.

Wirex, a UK-based digital payments platform, partnered with Crossmint to upgrade from EOAs to smart wallets for global scalability. This enables programmable governance, multichain support including Stellar, and flexible custody models. The shift reduces vendor lock-in and accelerates product launches across retail and institutional offerings.

DCM launched the Transparent Network (TPN), a blockchain-based instant payment system built on Stellar, to modernize Ukraine's financial infrastructure. TPN enables banks to process payments in under five seconds with 70% reduction in acquiring costs for merchants and 60% reduction in transaction costs for institutions.

Freedom Pay Wallet has won Stellar Community Fund #38, with BP Ventures celebrating their partnership in developing a non-custodial Stellar wallet. The wallet integrates with MoneyGram for cash-in/out at 400,000+ locations and supports USDC payments for prepaid Visa cards, gift cards, bill payments, and mobile top-ups. The SCF grant will expand program reach, features, and operational resilience.

Stripe and Paradigm's Tempo is a new blockchain optimized for stablecoin payments, featuring stablecoin fees, 100k+ TPS, and EVM compatibility, directly challenging Stellar's established position in cross-border payments. Stellar, with a decade of proven reliability, anchors, SCP consensus, and Soroban smart contracts, offers production-ready compliance and fiat connectivity. The article compares their strengths, suggesting both could complementarily serve fintech needs.

PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin is now live on the Stellar network, expanding access through wallets and platforms like Bitcoin.com, Chipper Cash, and Lobstr. The deployment enables businesses to access real-time working capital and PayFi solutions with near-instant settlement on Stellar.

MoneyGram is launching a stablecoin-based cross-border payment solution in Colombia powered by Stellar, Crossmint, and Circle's USDC. The mobile app lets users receive funds instantly, store USD stablecoins, and cash out globally with lower fees and faster settlement than traditional methods.