Stellar Weekly Roundup: week of Aug 21, 2026

Stellar Private Payments (SPP), a privacy-pool protocol built by Nethermind, launched in developer preview on testnet, while Moonlight went live on Stellar mainnet with private UTXO payment channels. Protocol 28 (Adapter) also reached testnet this week, with the mainnet upgrade vote set for September 16 at 17:00 UTC.

Privacy Layer Double Launch

Two distinct privacy systems shipped to Stellar in the same week.

Stellar Private Payments (SPP) is a privacy-pool implementation from Nethermind. Users deposit assets into a shared pool and transact without exposing counterparties or amounts on-chain. The protocol includes association set providers for access control, global view keys for auditors, and selective disclosure for regulatory requirements. SPP is now live on testnet in developer preview; a technical walkthrough with the Nethermind team ran on August 28.

Moonlight, a private UTXO payment channel protocol from Aha, went live on Stellar mainnet. The August 27 Developers Meeting walkthrough (YouTube, X) covered the provider side: operator flow, channel thresholds, and how provider councils bundle transactions and satisfy regional compliance requirements without end-user custody of sensitive data.

Protocol 28 and Protocol Activity

Protocol 28 (Adapter) went live on testnet on August 27. The mainnet upgrade vote is September 16 at 17:00 UTC.

Two new proposals also surfaced this week. An initial draft of CAP 88 was submitted to the stellar-protocol repository. A separate discussion opened proposing millisecond-resolution close times, which would upgrade closeTime from whole seconds to millisecond precision and make sub-second ledger intervals possible at the protocol level without immediately lowering block times. Discussion on formalizing event topic extensions in SEP-41 also picked up new activity.

RWA Sector at $3.5B

Stellar's RWA sector closed the week at $3.5B in TVL across 70 distinct assets and more than 19,000 holders. WisdomTree brought 15 SEC-registered funds to Stellar spanning equities, fixed income, and alternatives, expanding the available set well beyond the T-bill-only offerings that defined the sector's earlier stage.

Pricing was the remaining bottleneck keeping RWAs out of DeFi. A post from RedStone Finance detailed how the SEP-40 oracle standard and RedStone's infrastructure address this: RWAs trade intermittently rather than continuously, requiring specialized cross-chain data pipelines. With that gap addressed, RWA collateral can now flow into lending and trading protocols.

Payments and DeFi

LOBSTR added Cash App Pay via MoonPay, giving eligible US customers a way to buy crypto directly from their Cash App balance without card details. The integration expands LOBSTR's fiat on-ramp options for US users.

Peridot Finance launched margin trading on Stellar with up to 5x leverage on XLM against USDT collateral, with liquidation protection and risk management inside a unified lending-and-trading interface.

Velo Protocol and Zebec Network announced a joint X Space on September 10 to discuss the Zebec x Velo Debit Card, which links Velo's PayFi infrastructure to everyday card spending.

The The Comet BLND-USDC pool was exploited Aug 25 for 717k USDC via swap bug. Severely affecting Blend backstop holder. More information to come on remediation. A post mortem has been published by the Script3 team.

Community and Meridian

Meridian 2026 added new speakers this week: Daniel Rowlands of Wirex, Rick Daniel of Decaf, Monica Ramirez de Arellano of Anchorage, Maximilian Roszko of Curve Finance, Peter Kerstens of the European Commission, and Allium Labs.

The São Paulo Builder Summit recap was published this week. 218 developers from more than 10 countries worked across eight days on three tracks: privacy, payment ramps, and agentic tooling. The event produced 19 completed projects and more than 50 bounty submissions. Applications for the Giveth Stellar Community Growth quadratic funding campaign closed today August 28, funding workshops, hackathons, meetups, and university sessions aimed at bringing builders into Stellar.

Lightning Round

• Nectar, a keeper-based Blend auction protocol, posted updates noting it is on track for mainnet after audit.
• HackMeridian opened registration for its two-day Lisbon hackathon running alongside Meridian 2026.
• Rise In's Stellar Journey to Mastery called for last August slots in its monthly builder challenge.
• Stellar Philippines took a bootcamp to PHINMA Araullo University in Cabanatuan City on August 24.
• Stellar Chile launched Stellar Barrio, a recurring meetup series at the Tellus Coop Blockchain Hub in Santiago.
• Stellar Türkiye held a Build on Stellar workshop in Izmir led by ambassador @mericcintosun.

Upcoming Events

• Aug 28: Stellar Nigeria Founders & Builders Dinner, Lagos
• Aug 28: Stellar Chile Community Call, Discord
• Aug 28: Stellar Town Hall, Discord
• Aug 28: Stellar Barrio: Inauguración Hub Tellus, Santiago, Chile
• Aug 28: O Legado do Meridian: Ecossistema Stellar no Brasil, Rio de Janeiro
• Aug 30: Live-Coding en Stellar, Online
• Aug 31: Weekly Brazilian Ambassador Meeting, Discord
• Sep 1: StarMaker Community Call, Google Meet
• Sep 1: Stellar Campus Barranquilla: Sesión 2, Universidad del Norte, Colombia
• Sep 3: Stellar Developers Meeting, YouTube
• Sep 3: E.Africa Weekly Community Call, Discord
• Sep 3: Stellar Campus Barranquilla: Sesión 2, Universidad de la Costa, Barranquilla
• Sep 5: From Code to Mainnet: Shipping on Stellar, Yenagoa, Nigeria
• Sep 8: Stellar Campus Barranquilla: Sesión 3, Universidad del Norte, Colombia

Ambassador Activity

Stellar Indonesia posted 10 items this week, spotlighting APAC Hackathon builders and wrapping an ambassador meetup in Bandung with 10+ participants exploring the MAD Program. Stellar Philippines posted 9 items, covering APAC Hackathon results and running a bootcamp at PHINMA Araullo University in Cabanatuan City on August 24. Stellar Chile led the activity count with 11 items, running multiple Stellar Barrio sessions at the Tellus Coop Hub in Santiago throughout the week. Stellar Türkiye posted 9 items, including the Izmir workshop and a preview of a September Pro Hackathon in Istanbul.

What to Watch

• September 16: Protocol 28 (Adapter) mainnet upgrade vote at 17:00 UTC.
• September 10: Velo x Zebec X Space on the Zebec Debit Card and PayFi infrastructure.
• SPP developer preview: Nethermind's Stellar Private Payments is open for developer testing on testnet. The mainnet path depends on developer feedback from this preview.
• CAP 88 and millisecond close times: Two early-stage protocol proposals opened this week. Watch the stellar-protocol repository for community responses.
• Meridian 2026: Speaker lineup continuing to expand. Watch for session schedule announcements and HackMeridian registration details.