Stellar Ecosystem
News

This article explains why Stellar requires rigorous testing of blockchain upgrades before deployment to mainnet, and details how Stellar Supercluster—an automated testing framework—enables developers to validate code changes in simulated network environments.

Stellar Development Foundation explains why Soroban's initial release uses the WASMI interpreter instead of a JIT compiler, citing security concerns, simplicity, and the complexity of integrating JIT with blockchain-specific requirements like metering.

Merkle Science, a Web3 risk and compliance platform, partnered with Stellar Development Foundation to bring its Compass transaction monitoring tool to the Stellar network, providing developers and operators with institutional-grade security and compliance solutions.

Starbridge protocol uses Stellar's existing features to enable secure token bridging between Ethereum and Stellar without smart contracts. The team formally verified the protocol with Ivy to ensure users cannot double-spend or exploit withdrawal and refund mechanisms.

The Stellar Development Foundation released an updated security guide covering common scams targeting the Stellar community, including phishing, support fraud, look-alike assets, and false claims. SDF clarifies it never asks for private keys, controls accounts, or freezes funds, and provides guidance on protecting yourself and reporting fraud.

This article explains how NFT ownership on the Stellar blockchain can be proven even in an apocalyptic scenario where services like IPFS, Stellar, and marketplaces are down. It relies on best practices from SEP-0039, using cryptographic CIDs for art and metadata, transaction reconstruction from genesis, and Ed25519 signatures. Basic math and offline computation suffice to verify ownership irrefutably.

Aquarius announces the Signers Guild to decentralize control over key AQUA wallets on the Stellar network, using native multisignature capabilities with up to 20 community members. The guild will manage 75%+ of uncirculated AQUA supply, including liquidity rewards, airdrops, and DAO funds, requiring majority approval for transactions. This initiative supports Aquarius's goals of enhancing SDEX and AMM liquidity through community governance.

The Stellar Development Foundation executed a Protocol 16 upgrade on April 10 after an outage on April 6 caused validator and Horizon nodes to go offline. The upgrade fixed the issue affecting multiple nodes without impacting network stability.

Stellar public network validators voted to upgrade to Protocol 16 on April 10, 2024, to resolve an issue that caused nodes to go offline. The upgrade took effect immediately, and node operators need to install compatible software to avoid disruptions.

Stellar Development Foundation validator nodes and Horizon API went offline April 6, 2021, causing transaction processing delays and exchange withdrawal halts at Binance, Bitfinex, and Bitstamp. The network recovered within hours with SDF restoring services by April 7.

The article details a 'Stellar Staking Marathon' email-phishing scam targeting Stellar (XLM) users, linked to the 2020 Ledger.com database breach that exposed over 1 million emails and personal data of 270,000 individuals. Stellarscam.report connects this to memo-phishing bots on the Stellar Network, noting pattern changes coinciding with the breach. Users are urged to check haveibeenpwned.com and report scams.

Stellar Development Foundation disclosed a phishing attack on November 29 targeting community members with fake emails impersonating SDF. The attackers compromised third-party email service API keys but did not access Stellar network infrastructure or user accounts; SDF emphasized it never requests secret keys.

SDF redesigned the Stellar Account Viewer with improved security features, hardware wallet support, and a new browser wallet called Freighter. The updated AV now emphasizes key management best practices and offers a better mobile experience.

Stellar ecosystem leaders debate custodial vs. non-custodial key management approaches in a roundtable discussion, exploring how CAP-27 and SEP-30 support different solutions and which the SDF should prioritize for financial inclusion and adoption.

The article recounts the origin of Stellarscam.report, created to combat 'memo-phishing' scams on the Stellar Network where scammers send malicious memos with tiny XLM amounts to trick users into revealing secret keys. The author, frustrated by repeated scam reports on r/Stellar, developed a bot in mid-May 2020 to automatically send warning transactions to victims. Monthly stats show the bot countered tens of thousands of scam transactions, highlighting ongoing community efforts against persistent fraud.

Stellar Development Foundation announced that Protocol 14 will be skipped in favor of Protocol 15 due to a critical bug discovered during testnet testing. The public network upgrade vote has been rescheduled to November 23, 2020, with detailed upgrade instructions provided for validators, Horizon operators, and SDK users.

SEP-30 enables user-friendly non-custodial wallets by eliminating recovery phrases and passwords. Users log in with just a phone number while maintaining full account control through device keys and distributed recovery servers. Vesseo, a USD savings app on Stellar, demonstrates this approach in production.

Part two of a key management series explains how Stellar accounts work, covering public/secret keys, master keys, multi-signature capabilities, and common wallet strategies. The post introduces SEP-30 as a better approach to user-friendly key management and account recovery.

Ledger Wallet offers a secure way to buy over 80 cryptocurrencies, including Stellar, directly into users' non-custodial hardware wallets using fiat or crypto. It aggregates providers like Moonpay and Ramp for competitive pricing and ensures self-custody from the start. The feature emphasizes ease-of-use, clear transaction signing, and hardware-level security to prevent common risks associated with centralized exchanges.

The Stellar Foundation partnered with blockchain forensics firm Elliptic to help Stellar-based businesses screen transactions for money laundering, sanctions, and compliance risks. The service is optional for businesses; XLM wallet users won't be automatically surveilled. Stellar argues regulatory compliance and privacy can coexist.

Keybase and Stellar's 2 billion XLM airdrop ended early after attracting massive spam and bot activity. The program distributed only 300 million XLM instead of the planned amount, as fraudsters exploited verification methods to claim free tokens at scale.

Stellar Development Foundation released stellar-core v11.2 with automatic quorum configuration and a quorum intersection checker to help validators manage Byzantine Agreement Systems more easily and safely.

Stellar network halted for nearly two hours Wednesday when enough validator nodes stopped, preventing consensus. The incident highlighted risks of rapid decentralization, though SDF nodes remained operational.