Stellar Ecosystem
News

Stellar launches Soroban smart contracts platform, enabling a new DeFi ecosystem on the network. Built with Rust and WebAssembly for developer familiarity, Soroban maintains Stellar's focus on low costs, scalability, and financial inclusion while protocols like Soroswap and XycLoans already deploy on mainnet.

Stellar Protocol 21 activated on Mainnet on June 18, 2024, introducing five Core Advancement Proposals (CAPs) that add passkey signing support, improve state archival, and reduce smart contract transaction costs. Developers and operators must upgrade their Stellar-related software and re-upload existing Wasms to benefit from the new cost model.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced it will limit historical data access on its free Horizon service to one year of rolling data, effective August 1st, 2024. This change aims to reduce operational overhead and eliminate a centralized point of failure in the network, while directing users with longer historical data needs to alternative solutions like Hubble, third-party Horizon providers, or self-hosted infrastructure.

Tomer Weller, VP of Product at Stellar, discusses the blockchain's decade-long evolution, Soroban smart contracts, and real-world use cases including Argentina's adoption and Franklin Templeton's tokenized securities.

A technical guide comparing data types between Solidity (EVM) and Rust (Soroban), part 2 of a migration series. The article covers primitive and composite types, key differences like String vs. Symbol, and provides code examples for both languages.

Stellar's Soroban smart contracts platform went live on mainnet after two years of testing, enabling developers to build decentralized applications. The SDF allocated $100 million to a Soroban adoption fund that has already supported over 160 projects.

Soroban has reached phase 1 on mainnet, enabling the deployment of a registry contract for Soroban Domains. The team has updated the code to support subdomain registration and invalidation, with plans for domain transfer and liquidation features. They are also integrating support into xBull Wallet and excited for Stellar ecosystem developments.

A new protocol launches its website as Soroban goes live on Stellar mainnet in phase 0. The protocol, developed in just 20 days since February 3rd, aims to become the de facto domain service on Soroban with free-to-use features and future DAO plans. It's been on testnet since February 4th, 2024, awaiting full deployment.

Stellar mainnet upgraded to Protocol 20, introducing Soroban smart contract platform built on WebAssembly and Rust. The upgrade enables custom code execution while preserving Stellar's payments infrastructure and institutional compliance focus.

Stellar activated Protocol 20, launching its Soroban smart contracts platform in a phased rollout. The upgrade enables Ethereum-style programmability on the payments network, with 160+ projects already building on testnet preparing for mainnet deployment.

The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q4 2023 quarterly report highlighting major ecosystem achievements including Protocol 20 support, Soroban mainnet rollout, $4M in SCF funding to 88 projects, and over $2M in humanitarian aid disbursed via the Stellar Disbursement Platform.

Stellar network validators postponed the Protocol 20 upgrade vote due to a bug discovered in Stellar Core v20.1.0. The SDF has outlined a new timeline with a bug fix release on February 2, testnet reset on February 6, and a target Protocol 20 upgrade vote on February 20.

The Stellar Development Foundation organized the Workshop on Heterogeneous Trust in Distributed Systems (HTDS) in October, bringing together 30 researchers to explore consensus mechanisms where validators independently choose which peers to trust—a key feature of Stellar and other networks.

The Stellar Development Foundation disclosed a bug in Stellar Core v20.1.0 affecting fee-bumped Soroban transactions, where refunds are incorrectly sent to the sponsored account instead of the sponsor. SDF decided to proceed with the Protocol 20 upgrade vote on January 30 as planned, citing low risk during early Soroban phases and the availability of mitigation best practices.

An educational deep-dive into Stellar's Proof-of-Agreement (PoA) consensus algorithm, explaining how it differs from Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake through relatable examples of quorums, slices, and topens.

Blend, a permissionless on-chain lending protocol, has launched on Stellar Testnet. Users can now test lending, borrowing, and backstopping features using browser wallets like Freighter. The protocol offers high capital efficiency, flexible pools, and risk mitigations for the Stellar DeFi ecosystem.

Eiger, a Rust-focused web3 engineering firm, published its first newsletter showcasing two years of growth to 40 people, recent blog posts on Soroban tooling (Nebula), privacy protocols, and partnerships with Fireblocks, plus updates on partner projects like Elusiv's private swaps on Solana.

Stellar Development Foundation announced Protocol 20 upgrade with Soroban smart contracts, scheduled for January 30 validator vote on Mainnet. The network will roll out smart contract functionality in three phased stages to ensure stability and performance.

This article explains asset tokenization on Stellar, covering what it is, who can tokenize assets, key benefits like operational efficiency and transparency, and the technical process for creating digital representations of real-world assets on the network.

The Stellar Community Fund has distributed over $10M in XLM to 130+ projects across 10 review rounds and is scaling up funding by five times. The article provides eight key guidelines for submitting successful SCF proposals, emphasizing ecosystem impact, clear deliverables, and deep Stellar/Soroban integration.

RPCiege: Siege 5, Space Continuum launches December 4th with four Soroban smart contract challenges focused on state archival. Players can earn NFT cards and XLM rewards (up to 500 XLM for first place on each skirmish).

The Stellar Development Foundation announced the winners of Sorobanathon: Road to Mainnet, a month-long virtual hackathon held September-October 2023. Four projects were awarded: Cowchain Farm (gaming), Divify (expense management), Kwickbit & Paltalabs (compliance), and Soro-Shark (tokenization), with SDF planning additional hackathons for 2024.

Stellar's Protocol 20 upgrade, which enables Soroban smart contracts on Mainnet, is approaching a validator vote. The upgrade implements 12 Core Advancement Proposals and unlocks new possibilities for developers while maintaining Stellar's existing capabilities.

The Stellar Development Foundation released its Q3 2023 report highlighting major progress on its roadmap, including Soroban's advancement toward Mainnet launch, security partnerships with Certora, enhancements to the Anchor Platform and Wallet SDK, and significant ecosystem milestones like Circle's EURC stablecoin launch and MoneyGram's planned wallet integration.