DeFi, payments, tokenization, Soroban, governance, and project launches — curated daily from publications, project blogs, and community channels across the Stellar blockchain ecosystem.
Stellar's Q1 2026 report shows major milestones: RWAs crossed $2B (2.5x growth), payment volume hit $5.5B all-time high, and the developer ecosystem grew 86% YoY to 4,400+ developers. Major institutions including U.S. Bank, Amundi, and Société Générale are deploying on the network.
21X, the EU's first regulated DLT trading and settlement system, is now live on Stellar, hosting $2 billion in tokenized real-world assets. The multi-chain venue enables institutional trading and settlement of digital securities across blockchain networks.
Figure Technology Solutions launched YLDS, an SEC-registered, USD-pegged stablecoin with yield on Stellar. The product combines stablecoin liquidity with money market returns for regulated fintechs and neobanks, marking the first yield-bearing dollar product on the network.
The SEC now distinguishes between wrapped and native tokenization. Native tokenization keeps assets directly onchain as the single source of truth, enabling r…
Franklin Templeton's tokenized money market fund (FOBXX) hit $2 billion in assets and 5-year anniversary. CEO Denelle Dixon and head of innovation Sandy Kaul …
Ascend and the Stellar Development Foundation announced a strategic partnership with $1 million in investment to build compliance-first credit infrastructure for regulated real-world assets on Stellar, combining Ascend's ERC-3643 standard with Stellar's institutional settlement capabilities.
Franklin Templeton and Stellar mark five years of BENJI, the first U.S.-registered money market fund using a public blockchain as its system of record. Now representing over $650 million in value, BENJI pioneered tokenized funds with peer-to-peer transferability and intraday yield, spawning a multi-billion-dollar tokenization market.
Stellar Development Foundation and CV Labs launched a 12-week accelerator program supporting 10 early-stage startups building payments infrastructure, tokenized real-world assets, and DeFi applications across EMEA. Selected teams receive up to $150,000 in XLM funding, technical support, and investor access, with the program running August-October 2026.
OctoLend introduces collateral vaults as a bridge enabling RWAs to work with DeFi lending protocols. By delegating liquid XLM collateral, institutional borrowers can access RWA-backed leverage while maintaining compliance with redemption windows and KYC requirements.
Metafyed, backed by the Stellar Development Foundation, argues that most stablecoin holders miss yield opportunities by keeping capital idle. The platform tokenizes private credit in Asia, enabling USDC holders to earn 8-15% returns on regulated, asset-backed instruments without institutional minimums.
Franklin Templeton's BENJI, the first U.S.-registered money market fund on a public blockchain, has grown to $654M AUM on Stellar five years after launch. The fund leverages Stellar's native issuer controls for SEC compliance, enabling continuous yield accrual, low fees, and peer-to-peer share transfers.
Space and Time, a Layer 1 blockchain for verifiable financial data, has moved from mainnet launch in May 2025 through major integrations with Microsoft Fabric, Chainlink, and Stellar. The project's Proof of SQL coprocessor enables sub-second ZK-proven queries across millions of rows, now securing everything from tokenized assets to 30,000 Indonesian students' academic credentials.
Stellar's native compliance features like clawback, asset freezing, and privacy controls address why institutions haven't moved onchain. With $1.4B in tokenized real-world assets and partners like Franklin Templeton, Stellar positions itself as institutional settlement infrastructure rather than DeFi.
RedStone shipped its integrated Stack for pricing, liquidation, and credit risk with Lotus Finance and Real Finance already live. The platform expanded to Stellar, Canton, and other networks with real-time oracle infrastructure now supporting institutional-grade DeFi and real-world asset applications.
OpenZeppelin Stellar Contracts v0.7.0 released with governance voting support, ZkEmail DKIM registry, smart accounts rework, and reorganized RWA module with compliance guidelines and examples.
Cashlink Technologies, FINEXITY Group, and Tangany launched a regulated tokenized capital market infrastructure on Stellar, backed by the Stellar Development Foundation. The system was validated through a €3 million tokenized bond issuance for Germany's Ratekau Solar Park, demonstrating institutional-grade efficiency for real-world infrastructure financing.
Normal Finance, a non-custodial on-chain investing protocol on Stellar, secured investment from DraperU Ventures led by the legendary Draper family. The protocol enables users to access cryptocurrencies, real assets, and index baskets with full key ownership and audited security.
Amundi and Spiko launched SAFO, a tokenized overnight swap fund with shareholder registers on Ethereum and Stellar, using Chainlink oracles for NAV data. The dual-chain structure leverages Stellar's low-cost transfers alongside Ethereum's smart contract ecosystem.
Tokenized real-world assets surpassed $12 billion by March 2026, more than doubling from $5 billion at the start of 2025. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries lead at $5.8 billion, while private credit tokenization grew 180% year-over-year. Ethereum hosts over 60% of all tokenized RWAs, with DeFi protocols like MakerDAO integrating billions in RWA collateral.
RedStone launched its oracle infrastructure on Stellar to support DeFi and RWA applications. Stellar's RWA value surpassed $1.3 billion, with Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund representing $678 million of that total.
This article explains why vaults are critical DeFi infrastructure for Stellar's evolution toward institutional adoption. It covers vault mechanics, the rise of curation as a financial discipline, and how Untangled is building vault infrastructure on Stellar to enable yield generation and asset management.
Axelar Network has integrated Stellar, enabling cross-chain access and liquidity. Solv, Stronghold, and Squid are already live, allowing users to bridge assets like solvBTC and SHx across chains while maintaining Stellar's efficiency and compliance infrastructure.
Stellar processed 3.6 billion transactions in 2025 with 99.99% uptime, reaching 10.3 million unique addresses and $785 million in onchain real-world assets. Major institutions including Franklin Templeton, U.S. Bank, PayPal, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands deployed production systems on Stellar, while payment volume hit $55.6 billion, up 52% year-over-year.
The Stellar Development Foundation and TopNod announced at Consensus Hong Kong that TopNod's non-custodial Web3 wallet is integrating with the Stellar network, expanding access to Stellar's infrastructure across Asia, Africa, and Latin America with a focus on real-world assets and stablecoins.
The Stellar Development Foundation hosted a successful AMA on r/CryptoCurrency on January 28, reaching ~30k views and fielding 127 comments. The discussion covered Protocol 25 upgrades, ZK primitives, smart contracts, RWAs (which crossed $1B), payments infrastructure, and ecosystem growth.