Stellar Ecosystem
News

The Stellar Development Foundation outlines its framework for evaluating and selecting validator nodes to trust in its quorum configuration, based on eight key dimensions including security practices, geographic diversity, and organizational reliability. The article serves as both a transparency report on SDF's validator trust decisions and a blueprint for other network operators building their own validator configurations.

Normal has partnered with Halborn for a comprehensive security audit, backed by the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF). This initiative aims to ensure world-class security using industry-leading solutions.

Range announces a partnership with Peersyst to bring its cross-chain monitoring, security, and intelligence tools to the XRPL EVM sidechain launching in 2025. XRPL EVM introduces Ethereum-compatible smart contracts to the XRP ecosystem while preserving XRPL's speed and low costs, enabling DeFi, staking, and interoperability via IBC, Axelar, and Wormhole. Range will provide day-one support including its Cross-Chain Explorer, Monitoring and Alerts, and Trail forensic tool.

The article explains blockchain security fundamentals and highlights why Stellar is ideal for fast, low-cost payments and financial inclusion. It emphasizes Stellar's support for both cryptocurrencies and fiat, with tiny transaction fees. Tellus Cooperative promotes educational events on Stellar and Web3 for Latin American communities.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced enhanced 2025 updates to the Soroban Security Audit Bank, which has conducted over 40 audits and deployed $3 million in support. The program now offers complimentary initial audits with co-payment refunds for swift vulnerability remediation, incentivized follow-up audits at TVL milestones, advanced security tooling, and enhanced audit readiness support.

Range's Cross-Chain Explorer now tracks Allbridge Core, enabling real-time monitoring of $2.6B in cross-chain stablecoin flows across 12 chains. Users can set custom alerts on transfers, analyze flow patterns, and investigate suspicious activity. Data is available via Range's API for custom dashboards and compliance tools.

The article highlights the inefficiencies of traditional income verification processes, including delays, privacy invasions, and vulnerability to AI-generated fraud. It discusses how these issues lead to applicant drop-offs and business losses. Reclaim (or BlueCheck) offers an instant, document-free solution using trusted sources like IRS and payroll systems for secure verification.

Researchers uncovered critical vulnerabilities in browser wallets including Stellar Freighter, enabling attackers to silently steal recovery phrases and drain funds just by visiting a malicious site, without user interaction. Detailed exploits in Stellar Freighter, Frontier, and Coin98 wallets were reported and fixed with bounties. These flaws highlight risks in wallet architecture and the need for robust security.

This article contrasts Proof-of-Stake (PoS) vulnerabilities in networks like Ethereum and Solana with Stellar's Proof-of-Agreement (PoA) consensus. It highlights PoS risks such as MEV exploits, censorship, and irrational state attacks due to anonymous validators. Stellar's trust-based model requires validators to earn trust from peers, enhancing security through reputation rather than economic stakes.

This article explains how to monitor Soroswap, the first DEX on the Soroban Blockchain within the Stellar ecosystem, using Alterscope's risk infrastructure. Alterscope provides real-time metrics on security, liquidity, development activity, audits, TVL, volume, and social engagement for informed DeFi risk management. Soroswap, developed by Palta Labs, offers fast, low-cost token swaps with strong security features including audits by OtterSec and Runtime Verification.

Estrela, a Soroban-based DEX on Stellar, has completed its second security audit by Quarkslab, focusing on its 3-pool smart contracts. No critical issues were found, confirming a strong security foundation ahead of launch. This builds on Quarkslab's prior audits of Estrela and Allbridge Core.

OpenZeppelin's security audit of the Stellar Contracts Library, a new set of smart contract components for Soroban, identified one high-severity issue, one medium-severity issue, and five low-severity issues across fungible token and pausable utility modules. All issues have been resolved through pull requests.

The Stellar Development Foundation's research team published a 2024 recap highlighting their expansion to two full-time researchers, three peer-reviewed publications on distributed computing and consensus algorithms, five research talks at major conferences, and funding for 14 academic research groups globally.

Runtime Verification details their process for building formal verification and fuzzing tools using the K Framework to enhance smart contract security. They highlight tools like Kontrol for Ethereum and Komet specifically for Soroban smart contracts on Stellar. The post aims to bridge the gap between developers and advanced security tooling.

CoinFabrik shares insights from three major crypto conferences: Permissionless III highlighted Web3 marketing's growing importance, Meridian 2024 showcased Scout's positive reception in the Stellar ecosystem, and Avalanche Summit LATAM featured CyScout, their new CodeQL-based security tool for Solidity developers.

Blockaid has integrated its Onchain Detection and Response (ODR) security technology into Stellar's Lobstr and Freighter wallets, providing real-time threat monitoring and malicious transaction detection. This partnership marks the first deployment of Blockaid's Web3 security features on the Stellar blockchain.

Dfns ships Givre, an optimized FROST threshold signature library for distributed cryptographic systems. The open-source implementation outperforms existing Rust threshold EdDSA implementations and supports Bitcoin BIP340, Stellar, Soroban, Solana, and Tezos. Now maintained by Lockness under the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.

Tansu integrates stellar.expert's contract validation mechanism to ensure its on-chain contract matches the source code repository. This uses GitHub actions and SLSA attestations for supply-chain security. The feature verifies contract provenance on the Stellar blockchain explorer.

Soroswap, the first DEX on Stellar blockchain, evolved into an AMM aggregator to combat fragmented liquidity. They partnered with PaltaLabs for development and Runtime Verification for auditing via the Stellar Audit Bank program. The audit enhanced security and provided key insights like using deployer contracts.

Komet is a new tool from Runtime Verification for property testing and formal verification of Soroban smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain. It supports fuzzing and symbolic execution, integrating seamlessly with Rust for enhanced contract security. The article provides installation steps and a detailed case study testing a simple 'adder' contract.

Stellar has partnered with Hypernative to adopt its real-time threat detection and response platform to protect the network and projects building on it from hacks and security threats.

Obsrvr has deployed three full validator nodes on the Stellar network to enhance decentralization, security, and reliability. The geographically dispersed nodes are actively participating in the Stellar Consensus Protocol and maintain their own history archives. Obsrvr aims to achieve Tier 1 status and invites other validators to add their nodes to quorum sets.

This article explains the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), Stellar's unique approach to blockchain consensus that prioritizes speed, reliability, and decentralization without resource-intensive proof of work. It covers key concepts like quorum sets, voting mechanisms, quorum intersections, and the security benefits of using nodes operated by well-known organizations.

Coinspect has published the results of their security audit of the Tricorn Bridge's Soroban integration, conducted in collaboration with Boosty Labs and the Stellar Development Foundation. The audit identified 3 high-risk, 6 medium-risk, and 1 low-risk vulnerabilities in the smart contract's Rust source code and Golang backend. All findings have been addressed by the development teams, enhancing Soroban security knowledge.

Tansu has received an SCF28 Activation award to build infrastructure that anchors Git commit hashes on Soroban. The system creates a decentralized record of code changes, helping maintainers verify project integrity and combat centralized platform risks without disrupting existing workflows.

Soroban, Stellar's smart contract platform, is built on three core pillars: performance, sustainability, and security. The article details how Soroban's architecture—leveraging Rust and WebAssembly, implementing conflict-free concurrency, and prioritizing security through design—enables developers to build scalable and secure applications without performance bottlenecks.

Stellar Protocol 21 went live on June 18, 2024, introducing five Core Advancement Proposals including native secp256r1 verification for passkey support in smart contracts, alongside efficiency improvements for state archival and transaction costs.