Stellar Ecosystem
News

Stellar launches Build Better, a community-driven initiative that collects ideas from the ecosystem across three focus areas (finance, creativity, access) and translates them into hackathon tracks. The program offers a $30K prize pool and aims to bridge Web3 vision with real-world implementation using Stellar's smart contract platform.

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.

USDx stablecoin from FxDAO protocol is now live on Soroswap Finance, the first DEX on Soroban Blockchain, with a $190,000 TVL liquidity pool for the XLM/USDx pair. Users can issue USDx by locking Lumens as collateral in FxDAO vaults for liquidity without selling assets. The article guides on acquiring, swapping, and providing liquidity for USDx on Soroswap.

Protocol 22 is coming to Stellar Testnet on November 12 and will go to Mainnet validator vote on December 5. The upgrade introduces constructors for Soroban contracts (CAP-0058) and BLS12-381 cryptographic host functions (CAP-0059), enabling more efficient smart contracts and advanced privacy features like zk-SNARKs.

Hana Wallet now integrates Soroswap, allowing users to easily swap Stellar tokens like XLM and USDC directly from their mobile devices. The article provides a step-by-step guide to installing Hana Wallet, setting it up for the Stellar network, and accessing Soroswap via the app's DApps directory. This enhances decentralized finance accessibility on the Soroban ecosystem without KYC requirements.

At the October 2024 EasyA x Stellar Meridian Hackathon, PaltaLabs won 3rd place with Payroll Genius, a tool that digitizes employment contracts and salary management. It lets SMEs earn yield on salary reserves via Soroban DeFi while giving employees access to collateralized loans.

CoinFabrik shares insights from three major crypto conferences: Permissionless III highlighted Web3 marketing's growing importance, Meridian 2024 showcased Scout's positive reception in the Stellar ecosystem, and Avalanche Summit LATAM featured CyScout, their new CodeQL-based security tool for Solidity developers.

SorobanDomains introduces a new Key-Value storage contract on Stellar's Soroban platform, acting as a 'localstorage' for domains. It enables storing additional values like SEP-01 TOML file locations or IPFS CIDs for dApps. The contract is live on mainnet with a $PSD 100 registration fee.

zkCross Network announces Super Accounts on Stellar, powered by their Chain Abstraction Layer, enabling seamless 1-click cross-chain DeFi transactions without bridging or gas management. This integrates zkCrossDEX with Stellar's Soroban blockchain, supported by a Stellar Community Fund grant. The phased roadmap includes AMM DEX, staking, launchpad, and perpetuals trading.

Tansu integrates stellar.expert's contract validation mechanism to ensure its on-chain contract matches the source code repository. This uses GitHub actions and SLSA attestations for supply-chain security. The feature verifies contract provenance on the Stellar blockchain explorer.

Soroswap, the first DEX on Stellar blockchain, evolved into an AMM aggregator to combat fragmented liquidity. They partnered with PaltaLabs for development and Runtime Verification for auditing via the Stellar Audit Bank program. The audit enhanced security and provided key insights like using deployer contracts.

Tansu, a Stellar dApp, introduces an on-chain 'Support' button for funding open source projects directly via Soroban Domains. This creates transparent, costless, and borderless funding using Stellar addresses and smart contracts. Future developments include DAO-based fund management through the SCF Build program.

Stellar Development Foundation hosted a blockchain workshop on decentralized finance and smart contracts at Universidad San Sebastián in Santiago. Co-organized with PaltaLabs and regional community initiatives including Tellus Cooperative and Campus on Chain, the event covered Soroban's unique features and demonstrated practical smart contract creation and real-world DeFi use cases.

Mercury has released Retroshades, a smart contract indexing technology designed specifically for Soroban-supporting chains. Retroshades allows developers to build custom indexers in minutes by defining data structures directly within smart contracts, eliminating the need to learn new technologies or manage complex infrastructure.

Komet is a new tool from Runtime Verification for property testing and formal verification of Soroban smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain. It supports fuzzing and symbolic execution, integrating seamlessly with Rust for enhanced contract security. The article provides installation steps and a detailed case study testing a simple 'adder' contract.

Tansu, a Soroban-based versioning dApp, launches v1 on Stellar testnet, allowing project registration and on-chain Git history tracking. It completes SCF28 activation award deliverables, including smart contracts with Soroban Domains support and open-source tooling. The team thanks the Stellar community and eyes a Build award next.

This article explores the evolution of wallets from ancient times to modern smart contract wallets, highlighting how Stellar's infrastructure enables user-friendly, secure smart wallets with features like gasless transactions, passkey authentication, and account abstraction.

Technical comparison of three smart contract languages from someone who's shipped on all three. Solidity dominates by ecosystem size but carries well-known vulnerability classes. Soroban brings Rust's memory safety to Stellar with built-in resource metering. Plutus offers formal verification through functional programming but demands significant learning. Practical analysis of trade-offs for enterprise projects.

The Build Better on Stellar Smart Contract Challenge concluded with winners across tutorial and dApp categories, featuring projects like Entry•X (decentralized ticketing), DVILLA (sustainable e-commerce), and Soroban by Example. Winners received up to $13,000 USD and invitations to Meridian 2024, with next steps including SCF Kickstart and the Stellar Community Fund.

The Stellar Development Foundation and DEV announced the winners of the Build Better on Stellar: Smart Contract Challenge, with over $50,000 in prizes distributed across tutorial and dApp categories. Winners included projects like Soroban by Example, Entry X (decentralized ticketing), and DVILLA (sustainable e-commerce), with overall winners receiving $13,000 and all-expenses-paid trips to Meridian conference.

xyclooLabs announces new community indexes and dashboards functionality for Mercury, their data platform for Stellar developers. The update includes improvements to the zephyr-sdk with DashboardBuilder, backend infrastructure for creating and discovering indexes/dashboards, and a community section in the Mercury webapp.

Phoenix is a DeFi hub being built on Stellar's Soroban smart contract platform. The explainer video covers what Phoenix is and its role in the Stellar DeFi ecosystem.

Phoenix DeFi Hub has launched on Stellar's Soroban smart contract platform, starting with a decentralized exchange in May and planning an NFT marketplace and additional protocols. The platform aims to be a comprehensive DeFi solution leveraging Stellar's on/off-ramp infrastructure and stablecoin ecosystem.

This article explains smart contract wallets (smart wallets) and their advantages over traditional crypto wallets, including enhanced functionality, security features, and passkey support. It highlights how Stellar's Protocol 20 and 21 enable passkey-powered smart wallets to improve user onboarding and accessibility.

Paltalabs led a developer workshop at ETHChile 2024 teaching Soroban smart contracts and Soroswap AMM mechanics. The session covered Stellar's cross-border payment design, contract fundamentals, liquidity pooling, and asset swaps for Latin American builders.