Stellar Weekly Roundup: week of Aug 14, 2026

Marketnode will bring BNY Investments asset management funds onchain via Stellar, as the network's RWA active market cap reached an all-time high of $2.57B and Spiko's eurSAFO fund crossed $1.1B. SCF #45 closed with 213 submissions, the largest round in the program's history, while SCF #46 opened with a November 8 deadline. Merkl launched its first fixed-APR campaigns on Stellar through Upshift vaults curated by Gami Labs.

Sovereign Debt and Fund Tokenization

Stellar has held the lead in tokenized non-US government debt since February 2026, with $490M in sovereign instruments from issuers including Etherfuse, Spiko, Ondo, Franklin Templeton, and Circle. A post published this week documents the category's growth from roughly $500M in early 2025 to $3B by June 2026, citing Stellar's multi-currency design, protocol-native compliance tooling, and USDC liquidity access.

Marketnode's partnership with BNY Investments extends institutional tokenization into APAC asset management funds. Spiko's eurSAFO crossing $1.1B in the same week pushed Stellar's reported RWA active market cap to the $2.57B all-time high. SDF Chief Commercial Officer Jose Fernandez da Ponte wrote from Stellar House São Paulo that durable global financial services are built first on local regulatory and market realities, then connected to global liquidity, a model Stellar's permissionless infrastructure supports.

DeFi and Yield Infrastructure

Merkl launched its first incentive campaigns on Stellar through Upshift vaults curated by Gami Labs, with Turtle providing additional support. Depositors earn reported fixed APRs of 10% on USDC and 5% on XLM. Merkl's model monitors realized vault yields in real time and tops up shortfalls to maintain the stated rate rather than emitting variable rewards. Blend Capital publicly acknowledged the campaign.

Peridot Finance launched margin trading on testnet with a competitive leaderboard, and shipped an AI agent for DeFi portfolio management earlier in the week. Both remain testnet-only.

Balanced published notice that all v1 loans will be liquidated after December 1; users with bnUSD positions should repay or migrate to Balanced v2 before that date.

Developer Infrastructure

The August 20 Stellar Developers Meeting compared six wallet integration paths for dApp builders: Stellar Wallet Kit, Blux, Privy, Para, Passkey Kit, and Smart Account Kit. SDF Developer Advocate Kahn demonstrated account creation, funding, and transaction signing across each approach. The session also confirmed the Protocol 28 testnet upgrade for the following week; production configurations pinned to Protocol 27 should be updated.

Runtime Verification completed a security audit of Moonlight, a UTXO-based privacy-payment infrastructure developed by The Aha Company. The two-week engagement surfaced three medium-severity and a dozen informative findings, all addressed or acknowledged. Trustless Work joined SCF's official Integration Track as a recognized ecosystem building block. Active protocol discussions this week include post-quantum signature verification host functions and an externally managed contract executable type for Soroban.

SCF and Community Programs

SCF #45 drew 213 submissions, the largest round on record. The SCF team noted the volume will extend review timelines; panel review runs approximately 10 days, and the Community Vote is expected to open around September 2 for about one week. SCF #46 opened simultaneously with a November 8 submission deadline and updated handbook requirements at stellar.gitbook.io/scf-handbook.

Stellar's InstAward program funded 10 Turkish builders with $50,000 total across remittance infrastructure, P2P trading, privacy tools, dev tooling, DeFi vaults, micropayments, and AI-assisted workflows. Stellar Community Growth applications are open through August 28 for a Giveth QF round running September 21 to October 4, with community events funded November 1-30.

Lightning Round

• HackMeridian 2026 is confirmed for Lisbon with two tracks and XLM prizes. October 25-26 ; Rise In's Stellar Pro Hackathon runs September 19-20 in Istanbul with a $15,000 prize pool.
• Denelle Dixon joined Anthony Scaramucci and Mike Novogratz at SALT Conference for an All Things Markets taping on August 18.
• OpenZeppelin's @0xjiujitsu spoke at Stellar House São Paulo on Stellar and Rust as a smart contract development foundation.
• Range added 10 custody and wallet providers including Anchorage, Fireblocks, and BitGo, with real-time monitoring and direct QuickBooks/Xero integration.
• Green Road, a testnet POC combining Confidential Tokens with Trustless Work escrow infrastructure, placed second at Stellar Summit.
• SCF #45 has two open RFPs: a Stellar-compatible LayerZero DVN and an x402 Facilitator with Bazaar discovery support; details at the SCF handbook.
• Builder Spotlight #9 features Kaptan, developer of Subrosa, a Stellar privacy infrastructure project that grew from a hackathon entry into a sustained build.

Upcoming Events

• Aug 21: Stellar Chile Community Call, Discord
• Aug 21: Digital Assets and Blockchain Infrastructure: Protocol to Enterprise Scale, Bogotá, Colombia
• Aug 21: Stellar Town Hall, Discord
• Aug 24: Weekly Brazilian Ambassador Meeting, Discord
• Aug 25: Stellar Launchpad Nagpur, India
• Aug 25: Ideathon UTEZ: Impulso Universitario, Emiliano Zapata, Mexico
• Aug 25: StarMaker Community Call, Discord
• Aug 26: Stellar Barrio: Open Source en Blockchain, Santiago, Chile
• Aug 27: Stellar Developers Meeting, YouTube/Discord
• Aug 27: E. Africa Weekly Community Call, Discord
• Aug 28: Stellar Academy: ¿Qué es Github?, Temuco, Chile
• Aug 28: Ideathon UVM: Impulso Universitario, Cuernavaca, Mexico
• Aug 28: Stellar Nigeria Founders and Builders Dinner, Lagos
• Aug 28: Stellar Barrio: Inauguración Hub Tellus, Santiago, Chile

Ambassador Activity

Stellar Indonesia held its second ambassador meetup in Bandung, gathering 10+ ambassadors to discuss the MAD Program and hear from local builders. The chapter has been spotlighting teams from the APAC Hackathon Grand Finale, which drew 86 project submissions and 72 pitches in July.

Stellar Philippines ran a bootcamp at Bestlink College of the Philippines on August 18 and continued sharing profiles of APAC Grand Finale placers across DeFi, Local Finance, and Real World Access tracks. Stellar Türkiye held an İzmir community meetup on August 13; local builder Emin Kargöz was featured in Builder Spotlight #9 through Rise In. Stellar Brazil participated in Rio Blockchain Week through Etherfuse-organized sessions including a private lunch and morning alpha event. StarMaker LATAM shared a recap of Stellar Summit LATAM.

What to Watch

• Protocol 28 testnet upgrade, announced for the week of August 27.
• SCF #45 Community Vote expected to open around September 2.
• Stellar Community Growth QF applications close August 28.
• SCF #46 submissions are open; review updated handbook requirements before submitting.