DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
This article introduces Stellar DeFi, highlighting its strengths in interoperability, scalability, and low-cost transactions. It covers key features like the Stellar Consensus Protocol, Soroban smart contracts, asset tokenization, and applications in cross-border payments and financial inclusion. Stellar is positioned as a leader in building scalable DeFi solutions for both retail and institutional users.
Untangled introduces an Embedded Yield Layer to simplify access to fragmented DeFi and RWA yields across multiple blockchains. It features modular components like Untangled Vault, Credio, and Untangled Pool for automated capital allocation, risk management, and private credit tokenization. Products like USDyc are live on Stellar, Celo, and Polygon, enabling seamless yield for users and institutions.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #34 round awarded $1,717,287 worth of XLM to 17 innovative projects building on the Stellar blockchain. Projects span DeFi, payments, developer tools, gaming, and infrastructure, showcasing Stellar's growing ecosystem for serious builders. Highlights include Greep Pay for stablecoin POS, NebulaVRF for on-chain randomness, and DappRadar for Soroban tracking.
A step-by-step guide for asset issuers to list their assets on the Stellar Reflector Oracle, ensuring reliable price tracking across the Stellar network. The process involves establishing liquidity, maintaining trading activity, gathering community feedback, submitting a DAO proposal, and ongoing monitoring.
This article explains composability in DeFi and blockchain development using a hot rod analogy, detailing how different protocols and smart contracts can integrate seamlessly on Stellar to create more powerful financial systems. It covers DeFi building blocks, composability benefits, TVL growth, and practical considerations for building composable projects on Stellar.
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.
Pelago Labs announced its integration with Stellar to build a crypto-enabled supply chain financing platform that tokenizes account receivables and provides working capital to suppliers through USDC settlements on Stellar.
Blend V2 is launching with audits wrapping up soon. The migration allows lenders, borrowers, and backstoppers to move to V2 at their own pace while V1 remains operational, with key improvements including flash loan support, expanded pool parameters, and better liquidation mechanics.
Hoops Finance releases Version 0.4.0, introducing performance boosts via Incremental Static Regeneration, UI enhancements, and optimized builds for better DeFi experiences on the Stellar ecosystem. The team presented at ETH Denver, hosted by Caladan, outlining their vision for risk-assessed liquidity pools and smart savings. They invite users to test the platform on Testnet and join the community.
DappRadar integrates Stellar into its World's Dapp Store, allowing developers to list projects for free and users to discover dapps through onchain metrics. The integration brings Stellar's 18,000+ tracked dapps across 80+ blockchains to DappRadar's platform.
The Stellar Foundation released its 2025 roadmap with three primary objectives: achieving $1.5 billion TVL and top-ten DeFi status, reaching 5 million monthly active addresses, and scaling Real World Assets to $3 billion while maintaining its second-place position in the RWA category.
DIA launches xReal, the first oracle suite designed specifically for Real-World Asset (RWA) applications on-chain, featuring over 100 price feeds for assets like stocks, commodities, and ETFs. It bridges TradFi and DeFi, supporting key partners including Stellar and Ripple for RWA tokenization. xReal enables innovative dApps such as RWA-backed stablecoins, tokenized stock trading, and on-chain index funds.
PaltaLabs won the Best Oracle-Based Smart Contract Award at the 2nd Reflector Dev Contest for Trustless Portfolio Manager, an automated DeFi portfolio rebalancing tool built on Soroban that combines Reflector price feeds, DeFindex vaults, and Soroswap AMM functionality.
Etherfuse has launched Stablebonds on Stellar, tokenized government treasury bonds offering yield-bearing opportunities with low entry barriers. These RWAs leverage Stellar's low fees and global infrastructure to democratize access to the $140T bond market.
Balanced released its Q4 2024 update, highlighting launches on Stellar, Solana, and Optimism, alongside BALN cross-chain deployment across multiple blockchains including Stellar. Key achievements include intent-based trades between Arbitrum and Sui, smart contract audits, and preparations for cross-chain liquidity and Savings Rate. The DAO reported $82k in fees, with ongoing governance and economic enshrinement progress.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) Round 31 awarded $2,068,710 in XLM to 22 projects, including payment solutions, DeFi platforms, developer tools, and RWA tokenization engines. The round received 123 submissions, with 71 being first-time applicants, demonstrating strong ecosystem growth.
The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) #32 awarded $1,377,495 worth of XLM to 17 projects, including wallets, DeFi platforms, payment solutions, and developer tools. The round received 78 submissions, with 40 being first-time applicants, demonstrating continued ecosystem growth and innovation.
PayFi integrates payments with on-chain financing and blockchain technology to enable the free flow of value on-chain. By combining Web3 payments, Real-World Assets, and DeFi, PayFi unlocks new financing opportunities and helps businesses unlock liquidity through tokenized assets.
The Stellar Development Foundation published a comprehensive 2024 year-in-review highlighting major ecosystem achievements including the mainnet launch of Soroban smart contracts, expansion of DeFi protocols like Blend, integration of payment solutions with MoneyGram and Stripe, real-world asset adoption through Franklin Templeton and Paxos, and humanitarian aid initiatives through UNHCR partnerships.
Ghanaian fintech Seevcash integrated DeFindex's white-label DeFi yield infrastructure on Stellar in just one week, slashing development time from 12+ months and reducing code by 50%. Post-marketing, TVL spiked 433% to $13K with 24 active users earning yields on stablecoins. The SDK enabled gasless transactions via Stellar sponsorship, building trust in unbanked markets.
Balanced's 2024 review highlights explosive growth with new features like Savings Rate offering 17% average returns, economic enshrinement with ICON, and expansion to 12 blockchains including Stellar. Key developments include cross-chain loans, BALN & sICX tokens, and intent-based trades for efficient swapping. The protocol looks ahead to 2025 with cross-chain liquidity, more chain integrations, and enhanced trading.
DIA has deployed its price oracle infrastructure on Stellar's Soroban testnet, enabling developers to build DeFi applications with real-time market data feeds. The deployment was supported by a Stellar Community Fund award and provides access to price feeds for over 2,500 cryptocurrency tokens.
Huma Finance published a detailed breakdown of the PayFi Stack, a six-layer framework for blockchain-based payment financing inspired by the OSI model. The framework addresses limitations in traditional finance by enabling real-time, programmable, borderless payments through structured layers covering transactions, currencies, custody, compliance, financing, and applications.
Balanced Network has launched wrapper-free BALN and sICX tokens across multiple chains including Stellar, enabling seamless holding, swapping, and transferring. Previously limited to ICON, these tokens now reduce friction for users on Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BNB Chain, and soon Optimism. Upcoming features include cross-chain liquidity, rewards, and governance.
Balanced, a cross-chain DeFi app on ICON, has integrated Solana as its 11th blockchain connection, enabling users to swap SOL, transfer assets cross-chain, use SOL and JitoSOL as collateral to borrow bnUSD, and supply liquidity on ICON. This expands Balanced's reach to Solana's 5 million daily active users with audited smart contracts and low fees. The integration leverages ICON's GMP protocol, which also connects to Stellar and other chains.
Balanced, a cross-chain DeFi app, has launched on the Stellar blockchain, enabling users to swap XLM for assets on other chains, use it as collateral to borrow bnUSD stablecoin, and transfer to ICON for liquidity provision. The integration includes a Stellar Community Fund grant, audited smart contracts, and fast, low-cost transactions. It leverages ICON's GMP for seamless interoperability.
Stellar's DeFi ecosystem reached a record $61 million TVL on November 24, more than 150% above its mid-November peak, driven by surging XLM prices and growth across DEXs like Aquarius, LumenSwap, and Soroswap, plus the lending protocol Blend.