Stellar Ecosystem
News

HBUS listed Stellar Lumens (XLM) alongside Monero and Steem on its U.S. digital asset marketplace Huobi.com, bringing total tradeable assets to 15. The exchange plans to release an asset framework for transparency in its listing process.

Coinsquare acquired StellarX, a Stellar-native decentralized exchange, and will rebrand its previously acquired BlockEQ wallet as StellarX's anchor wallet. StellarX will operate as a Bermuda-based subsidiary while continuing development under its own brand.

SatoshiPay, a Stellar-based micropayments startup, partnered with Axel Springer SE to enable blockchain payments for content from major publishers like Business Insider and Rolling Stone, with wallet integration launching January 31.

SatoshiPay partnered with Axel Springer, Europe's largest digital publisher, to enable micropayments for news content using Stellar Lumens. The integration is expected to launch in spring 2019 across Axel Springer's brands including Business Insider and Bild.

Grayscale Investments added Stellar Lumens to its professional investment fund, marking the ninth crypto-asset listing and opening access to accredited investors earning $200k+. The move reflects institutional interest in Stellar's cross-border payment infrastructure.

Jed McCaleb, creator of Stellar, discusses the project's 2018 emergence as a mature blockchain platform after years of obscurity, highlighting partnerships with IBM and Blockchain.com, the Chain acquisition, and his vision for Stellar as a payments protocol connecting financial institutions.

SDF announces the Stellar Developer Program, replacing the Build Challenge format with monthly funding for long-term projects, plus new wallet guidelines and a developer mailing list to improve ecosystem collaboration.

Stellar Development Foundation announces three major lumen distribution initiatives: the Stellar Community Fund for community-voted grants, updates to the Partnership Grant Program which has funded 34 companies, and launch of an Academic Research Program for blockchain research.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced three major community initiatives: Stellar Clusters for local grassroots meetups, a first global Stellar conference, and the Stellar Community Fund to let the community guide lumen distribution. The post also highlighted Reddit governance experiments and a Community Champions program.

Blockchain wallet provider is distributing $125 million in Stellar lumens (XLM) to wallet holders, marking Stellar's first major airdrop partnership and an effort to onboard millions of new users to crypto.

The Stellar Development Foundation outlines its vision for financial inclusion, emphasizing how Stellar's blockchain infrastructure enables local fintech entrepreneurs to reduce costs, accelerate go-to-market speed, and access global markets. The post features three companies building inclusion solutions on Stellar: Seamless Money, FinClusive, and Wala.

Novatti launched the Novatti AUD Utility Token on Stellar Network, a one-to-one AUD-backed stablecoin. As the first AUD anchor on Stellar, Novatti enables instant AUD payments and settlements with access to global foreign exchange via the Stellar Network.

Singapore-based TransferTo is partnering with Stellar to enable low-cost blockchain-based cross-border remittances for underbanked populations in emerging markets, with plans to send regular payments across the Stellar network by Q4 2018 using Lumens as the settlement currency.

Stellar and Ripple, both born from the same 2014 fork, are competing to replace SWIFT in cross-border payments. Ripple secured Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank while Stellar partnered with IBM on Blockchain World Wire, but both face a bear market downturn.

TokenSoft, a compliance platform for crypto startups, is now officially supporting token launches on the Stellar protocol. The company previously focused on Ethereum-based projects but cited Stellar's maturity and growing demand from entrepreneurs as reasons for expanding support.

Lightyear, formed by the Stellar Foundation, acquired San Francisco-based blockchain fintech Chain. The deal, rumored at $500m, will move Chain's operations to the Stellar network as part of Lightyear's rebranding to InterStellar.

The 7th Stellar Build Challenge concluded with 107 submissions and 3.52M lumens in total awards. StellarGuard and dotnet-stellar-sdk contributions won top honors, with 53 projects receiving recognition across multiple categories including wallets, SDKs, tutorials, and trading applications.

IBM has launched Blockchain World Wire, a cross-border payment solution built on Stellar that reduces costs and speeds up international transactions by converting currencies to digital assets through the World Wire API.

IBM Blockchain World Wire, built on Stellar's protocol, launched as a near-real-time cross-border payments system. The platform uses digital assets to bridge fiat currencies and promises faster settlement with reduced transaction costs for financial institutions.

Celsius Network, a crypto lending platform, partnered with Lightyear.io to offer borrowing and lending services for Stellar-based projects and ICOs. Celsius will add Stellar Lumens support to its wallet and enable interest-earning on Stellar tokens.

A developer created 'stcli', a simple, single-file Python REPL command-line wallet for Stellar-based assets like ETH, BTC, and EURT. It emphasizes code transparency, ease of review, and support for testing Stellar remittance functions including federation and compliance. The wallet addresses gaps in existing options by being Linux CLI-friendly and fully auditable.

IBM and Stronghold launched Stronghold USD, a dollar-backed stablecoin on Stellar, enabling businesses and asset managers to conduct faster, cheaper cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlements.

The article explores Stellar's federation system for human-readable addresses like anthony*tempo.eu.com, which simplifies payments compared to raw public keys. It discusses QR codes, URIs similar to Bitcoin's bip 0021, and compatibility among Stellar wallets like Lobstr and Papaya. Smart anchors like Flutterwave integrate federation for bank account validation.

Kik launched a crypto-economy allowing users to earn and spend Kin tokens through the Kin Marketplace Beta. Users can earn Kin by completing quizzes, tutorials, and polls, then spend it on premium app themes. Kin operates on its own blockchain forked from Stellar, enabling zero-fee transactions.

Stellar is reportedly in talks to acquire Chain.com, an enterprise blockchain company founded in 2014 that has raised $40m and worked on token infrastructure for major financial institutions.