Stellar

Stellar took in $36.4 million of the $96.5 million that flowed into real-world asset tokenization across the top 10 blockchain networks over the past 24 hours, according to RWA Foundation citing Token Terminal. That single-network share amounts to more than a third, or 37%, of the total 24-hour inflow into the top 10 networks. The figures cover only the top 10 blockchain networks by RWA tokenization market capitalization, which rose by $96.5 million in the period.

Stellar has reached a new milestone in decentralized finance, with the network now surpassing $273 million. The project continues to position itself as a fast-growing crypto network, challenging XRP across the DeFi ecosystem. The milestone underscores Stellar's expanding presence in decentralized finance as it competes with rival blockchain networks.

The Soroban SDK, the Rust-based software development kit used to write smart contracts for Stellar's Soroban smart contract platform, has received a new upgrade with the release of Soroban SDK v28. The release supports Protocol 28, an upgrade that launched on the mainnet on September 16 and brought faster consensus, atomic upgrades for fleets of contracts, and a safer, standard way to migrate contract data. Version 28 of the Soroban Rust SDK includes a variety of build system changes, new behavior to better support contract data migration, and new features such as Spec Shaking v2, contract data migration, sparsely published events, executable references, and native contracts that can be uploaded in tests. Spec Shaking v2 changes the way specs are included, using dead code elimination, the same principle compilers use to determine if code should be included in the final binary, with the SDK now emitting an entry for everything while the build system in stellar-cli strips the entries the contract does not use. Separately, Stellar is celebrating its 11th anniversary, having launched on September 30, 2015, and recently passed 22,000 RWA holders; Tomer Weller, Stellar Foundation head of product, noted that this marks the anniversary of the new Stellar network, while the old Stellar network launched a year earlier in 2014 with the native currency Stellars and the ticker STR.

The Stellar blockchain network has broken its all-time transaction speed record, reaching a peak of 217.4 transactions per second over a 100-block window according to analytics tracker Chainspect. The previous record of approximately 211 TPS had stood for less than two weeks. The new mark represents the highest throughput the network has achieved to date.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced on the 17th that it has launched a new protocol upgrade, "Adapter" (Protocol 28), on the mainnet. It is a major update centered on developer-focused improvements, implementing several Core Advancement Proposals, or CAPs. One of the highlights, CAP-83, allows validators to begin voting without waiting to fully receive a transaction set, speeding up consensus processing and expected to boost throughput during congestion. CAP-85 introduces a mechanism to update large numbers of deployed smart contracts in bulk, so that simply updating a shared code reference updates all contracts simultaneously, eliminating the risk of partial inconsistencies. CAP-86 is a new feature that makes contract updates and data migration easier, adding a new "sparse" host function that does not raise errors even when fields are missing or extra, allowing developers to safely proceed with schema changes. With these improvements, Stellar evolves into a developer-friendly platform suited to practical financial applications, without sacrificing its speed and low cost.

MoneyGram has announced its entry into the stablecoin-based debit card market, choosing Latin America as its launch market. The project is built on the Stellar blockchain network, which powers the new virtual Visa card. The payments giant did not disclose which specific Latin American country will host the launch or the financial terms of the initiative.

U.S. Bank, a major American bank, announced on September 9 that it had completed a proof-of-concept cross-border remittance transaction using its own stablecoin, USBDC. In the trial, the bank used the U.S. dollar-backed USBDC to actually move funds between its affiliated entities in North America and Europe, relying on the public blockchain Stellar. The transfer of funds on the blockchain was carried out while connected to the bank's core treasury, risk management, compliance, and operations infrastructure, and a key feature was that the bank used a stablecoin it issued itself for cross-border payments while maintaining its existing governance framework. The underlying system used the bank's internally developed Digital Asset Platform, which handles the issuance, management, and transfer of tokenized assets. According to the Stellar Development Foundation, the trial also tested not only issuance, payment, and redemption but also "clawback," which allows assets to be frozen or recovered. The bank revealed in November 2025 that it was testing the issuance of its own stablecoin on Stellar, and this initiative has now advanced to a proof-of-concept transaction linking North America and Europe.

U.S. Bank has successfully completed the first live pilot of its USBDC stablecoin, moving real money between its U.S. and European branches through the public Stellar (XLM) blockchain. The pilot marks a significant step in the bank's global cash management strategy, demonstrating the viability of blockchain-based settlement for cross-border transactions. The bank's CEO highlighted the innovation as a key component of its broader digital asset initiatives, emphasizing the potential for stablecoins to enhance efficiency and transparency in international payments. This development positions U.S. Bank among the early adopters of stablecoin technology in the traditional banking sector.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced on September 8 that the Stellar blockchain ranks first among all blockchains in the balance of assets tokenizing non-US government debt. According to RWA.xyz, as of August 20, non-US government debt on Stellar reached approximately $490 million (about ¥78.4 billion), maintaining the top position since surpassing Ethereum in early February. On Stellar, tokenized assets include Mexico's short-term government bonds CETES, Brazilian government bonds, South Korean government bonds, and the Marshall Islands' digital government bonds, as well as a eurozone short-term government bond fund. Meanwhile, Ethereum leads in tokenized US Treasuries, with a balance of approximately $15.86 billion (about ¥2.5376 trillion) as of September 8. The SDF explained that Stellar's management features supporting identity verification and transaction restrictions, along with its design suited for international remittances and multi-currency payments, are behind its adoption.

Stellar is counting down to a major upgrade that will make it easier for builders writing smart contracts on the blockchain, while a change under the hood will help the network reach consensus faster as it continues to scale.

Mastercard selected XRP's ledger for card settlement, MoneyGram chose Stellar for its dollar stablecoin, and the UK Treasury endorsed Hedera for FX collateral, while Swift bypassed all three networks by building its own blockchain ledger on Consensys' Linea with 17 banks set to pilot live transactions. XRP leads institutional investment with five spot ETFs holding nearly $1 billion, whereas XLM has no dedicated ETF and all three coins are down over 59% in the past year, with XRP price down about 65% over the past year. Stellar reported $5.5 billion in stablecoin payments in the first quarter, up 72% year-over-year, but neither Ripple nor Hedera publishes comparable figures. Ripple processes about $16 trillion annually across its payment and clearing businesses, yet digital assets including XRP make up close to zero percent of that volume. The SEC and CFTC issued joint guidance in March treating XRP, XLM, and HBAR as digital commodities, clearing the way for institutional holdings.

Stellar has confirmed a golden cross, a key bullish technical signal. The crossover occurred when the shorter-term moving average moved above the longer-term trend indicator, suggesting a possible change in momentum after months of weakness.

Tradable has announced it will tokenize up to $1 billion worth of private credit assets on the Stellar blockchain. The partnership builds on Tradable's existing $1.7 billion tokenized private credit portfolio, which already spans roughly 30 institutional deals. Total on-chain real-world assets on Stellar have grown to approximately $3 billion, putting it close to Solana as competition in tokenization among major blockchains intensifies.

Payments giant MoneyGram has joined the Stellar network as a Tier 1 validator. The announcement marks a significant expansion of MoneyGram's involvement with blockchain-based payment infrastructure, as it becomes one of the select entities responsible for validating transactions on the Stellar blockchain. Stellar, often viewed as a rival to Ripple, now counts the global money transfer firm among its network validators, a move that could enhance the network's credibility and utility in cross-border payments.

Repay Holdings has completed its first successful proof of concept for accepting stablecoin payments via its platform. The demonstration involved a consumer-to-business transaction on the Stellar blockchain using USD Coin, a fiat-backed stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. The proof of concept utilized the company's existing technology stack and provided an interface where consumers could authorize payments through a browser wallet extension. Upon confirmation, both the Stellar and REPAY systems reflected the completed transaction, with funds made available to the client's wallet shortly thereafter. Repay Holdings is a payments technology company offering solutions such as debit and credit card processing, ACH processing, and digital wallet services.

Stellar's XLM token rose as much as 10% in the past day, contributing to a weekly gain of 30% that momentarily pushed its market capitalization above that of privacy token Zcash. The jump followed positive developments and briefly moved Stellar ahead of Zcash in cryptocurrency market rankings.

Stellar's XLM token surged 10% in 24 hours to $0.249, extending its weekly gain to over 36% and making it the top crypto performer of the day. The rally was driven by Stellar's progress in real-world asset tokenization and a short squeeze that forced mass liquidation of bearish positions.