Stellar Ecosystem
News

SCF Kickstart bootcamp concluded its first 2023 cohort, supporting 30 Web3 startups building on Stellar and Soroban. CashAbroad won first place with $15,000 XLM for its LATAM cross-border payment platform, followed by Ripe and uils as runners-up.

Tomer Weller from Stellar Development Foundation interviews Cubist co-founders Fraser Brown and Riad Wahby about building security-focused developer tools for cross-chain Web3 development. Cubist received a Stellar Bridge Bounty grant and discusses why they integrated with Stellar.

Stellar Development Foundation announced updates to the Anchor Directory, adding search functionality, contact info, and filters for SEP standards to help wallets and anchors discover and connect with compatible partners on the network.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced Meridian 2023, its 5th annual conference scheduled for September 26-28 in Madrid, Spain. The event will feature 400+ attendees, 100+ speakers including actor Idris Elba, and focus on how blockchain technology can unlock human potential and increase financial access.

Soroban offers developers a compelling alternative to Ethereum and Solana through inclusive technology choices like WebAssembly and Rust, a greenfield ecosystem, global financial reach with diverse stablecoins, superior network reliability, and a streamlined developer experience.

SDF celebrated Consensus 2023 in Austin, showcasing Stellar's real-world utility beyond payments. CEO Denelle Dixon discussed blockchain's role in humanitarian aid, while the team highlighted Stellar Aid Assist and partnerships with major players like Franklin Templeton.

A DAO is nearing legal incorporation and aims to be the first fully operating on the Soroban network. They've completed the Safety Pool contract, which liquidates undercollateralized vaults to maintain protocol health, but face integration issues due to Soroban preview limitations. Next steps include refactoring contracts and developing the Staking Pool.

Advanced Payment Solutions joins Armenotech and Tempo France in a Stellar-based fintech ecosystem to bridge traditional and digital finance, with plans for CBDC projects and a Euro-nominated stablecoin.

The Stellar Community Fund published guidance on three best practices for successful SCF applications: demonstrate technical expertise with Soroban/Stellar, prove ecosystem impact, and define clear 3-month roadmaps with specific deliverables.

The Stellar Newsletter highlights Q1 achievements including Franklin Templeton's OnChain Fund surpassing $270M AUM on Stellar blockchain, SDF's strategic progress, and new board member Asiff Hirji. It covers partnerships like Arf, Cebuana Lhuillier, and blockchain remittances, plus Soroban smart contracts developments and community spotlights. Upcoming Meridian 2023 in Madrid is announced.

QolaQ's mutual aid platform integrates Soroban smart contracts, leveraging parallel processing, low fees, energy efficiency, and global asset access for transparent decentralized fund distribution on Stellar.

Stellar Development Foundation announced plans to open-source the Stellar Disbursement Platform by Q3, enabling developers and organizations to build bulk payment and on/off-ramp solutions for humanitarian aid and financial inclusion use cases.

SEP-24 is a standardized API that enables anchors to offer hosted deposits and withdrawals directly within apps, eliminating the need for custom integrations and improving user access to on/off ramps for fiat and digital assets.

The Stellar Development Foundation showcases four Stellar Community Fund projects building on Soroban: Qolaq (mutual aid platform), Comet (weighted AMM), FxDAO (decentralized borrowing), and XycLoans (flash loans protocol). Each demonstrates innovative use cases for Soroban smart contracts on Futurenet.

Tomer Weller from Stellar Development Foundation interviews Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar, to discuss cross-chain communication protocols and how both teams approach interoperability challenges for developers.

Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund surpassed $270 million in assets under management on Stellar, with the Stellar Development Foundation CEO highlighting regulatory clarity as key to mainstream adoption. The fund is now accessible via the Benji Investments app.

Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use Stellar blockchain for transactions and share ownership, surpassed $270 million AUM. The fund is accessible via the Benji Investments app and represents a major institutional adoption of blockchain technology in traditional finance.

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 showcased Stellar's real-world utility at Paris Blockchain Week, featuring keynotes on humanitarian aid delivery via Stellar Aid Assist, Soroban smart contracts workshops, and panels on enterprise payments with stablecoins like GYEN and ZUSD.

Stellar Development Foundation launched Stellar Aid Assist, a stablecoin-based platform enabling humanitarian organizations to distribute cash aid via USDC through the Stellar network. The platform eliminates intermediaries, reduces costs to near-zero, and provides recipients secure access to funds without bank accounts, currently piloted with Ukrainian refugees.