Stellar Ecosystem
News

Ukraine's government partnered with Stellar Development Foundation to build a central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the Stellar blockchain. The National Bank of Ukraine will use Stellar's consensus mechanism to develop the e-hryvnia, marking a major adoption of blockchain technology for sovereign digital currency.

Velo Labs' partners Lightnet Group and SEBA Bank completed the first live transaction on the Federated Credit Exchange Network (FCX), exchanging vUSD and vCHF digital credits pegged to fiat currencies using VELO tokens as collateral and settlement.

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.

The Stellar Development Foundation criticized FinCEN's proposed rule on convertible virtual currency transactions, arguing it was developed without sufficient industry input and would hinder law enforcement while stifling blockchain innovation and financial inclusion.

The Stellar Development Foundation invested $3 million in Settle Network, a Latin American cross-border payment platform, to support its stablecoin exchange StableX. This marks SDF's fourth Enterprise Fund investment this fiscal year.

SatoshiPay integrates Bankhaus von der Heydt's euro-backed stablecoin (EURB) into its cross-border payment service DTransfer. The EURB launched on Stellar via a partnership between the 270-year-old German bank and Bitbond, providing regulatory-compliant EUR transfers across the Single Euro Payments Area.

Bitbond and Bankhaus von der Heydt launched EURB, the first EUR stablecoin issued directly by a banking institution on Stellar. The 1:1 EUR-backed asset provides a new on/off-ramp for the network and enables regulated tokenized securitization.

Circle Internet Financial will issue USDC stablecoin on Stellar, launching by February 2021. The asset will enable businesses to build payment apps with reliable access to tokenized USD for cross-border transactions.

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.

Ultra Stellar LLC acquired StellarX, a popular decentralized exchange on Stellar, expanding its product portfolio alongside LOBSTR wallet and StellarTerm. StellarX enables peer-to-peer trading of digital assets and fiat conversions directly from user wallets.

Velo Labs is building a Federated Credit Exchange Network on Stellar that enables partners from legacy finance, CeFi, and DeFi to issue digital credits pegged to fiat currencies by staking VELO tokens, using the Hermes Warp Protocol to bridge Stellar with other chains for smart contract functionality.

Stellar public network upgraded to Protocol 15 at 1600 UTC, introducing Claimable Balances and Sponsored Reserves features to enable more user-friendly app development on the network.

Settle Network and Stellar launched ARST and BRLT stablecoins pegged to Argentine peso and Brazilian real respectively, enabling fast cross-border remittances between Latin America's two largest economies and addressing financial inclusion for millions of unbanked citizens.

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.

SendIt is a user-friendly wallet built on the Stellar blockchain that enables sending and receiving payments via email addresses, eliminating the need for public keys or technical blockchain knowledge. It supports stablecoins, XLM, and asset swaps like USD to NGN for instant cross-border transfers via Stellar anchors. The testnet is live, with mainnet launch planned in two months to drive mass adoption and financial inclusion.

Lettuce Pay, a Stellar Community Fund grantee, surveyed 130 U.S. small business owners on cryptocurrency payment acceptance. Key findings: 30% have been asked to accept crypto, 75% would if it instantly settled to USD, and two-thirds believe crypto will become mainstream in five years. The company is building a product to let merchants accept crypto while dealing only with USD.

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.

Denelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development Foundation, spoke at the IMF World Bank Annual Meetings on a panel about cross-border payments, emphasizing that private sector innovation must prioritize use cases, interoperability, and developer-friendly technology to enable financial inclusion through permissionless networks.

Velo Labs, a Stellar-based fintech platform, announced a partnership with Terra to build a next-generation payment system. The team has also partnered with Band Protocol for FX data oracles and Matrixport Cactus for custodial services, advancing its federated credit exchange network for Southeast Asian remittances.