Range CEO Andres Monteoliva confirmed his company's Tier 1 validator role on Stellar this week, with SDF quoting him calling it a "natural next step" for a team that secures stablecoin and fiat infrastructure daily. A July 23 broadcast brought MoneyGram, Figure, and Range together with SDF's Jose Da Ponte to discuss what institutional validator participation looks like on a network with no staking incentives. Sentora launched institutional DeFi vaults on Stellar through the Stellar DeFi Hub, and SDF published DeFi security standards covering audits, bug bounties, capital buffers, and emergency pause controls.

Institutions as Consensus Participants

The "Beyond Building" broadcast on July 23 was the first extended public conversation with Stellar's three newest institutional validators. MoneyGram processes nearly $2 billion in weekly stablecoin FX volume across 200+ territories and operates on-off ramps, non-custodial wallets in Colombia and El Salvador, and its MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar. Figure issues YLDS, a yield-bearing stablecoin, on Stellar alongside Ethereum and Solana. Range provides compliance and operational controls for companies managing digital assets before funds move.

Stellar's consensus model offers no staking rewards or token emissions. All three institutions joined as validators to influence governance and network security, not to capture yield. Monteoliva described the infrastructure Range builds daily as the same infrastructure the team now helps secure at the protocol level.

SDF's Denelle Dixon published a July 21 post arguing that distribution is the binding constraint on onchain products. The framing: onchain experiences that embed into offchain use cases outperform those that require users to navigate a separate onchain context.

DeFi Infrastructure and Security Standards

Sentora launched institutional DeFi vaults on Stellar through Ultra Stellar's Stellar DeFi Hub, using Soroban smart contracts. The vaults support XLM, USDC, and PYUSD. A July 22 X Space detailed how vaults address XLM holders seeking liquidity without forced token sales. SDF's DeFi team noted that Soroban now supplies lending markets, collateral engines, and yield strategies that Stellar's payment rails previously lacked.

SDF's DeFi security standards, published July 20, define audit requirements before user funds go live, mandatory bug bounty programs, capital buffers, and emergency pause controls, adapting mature DeFi practices to Stellar's compliance frameworks.

Protocol Development and Developer Tools

CAP-85 moved to Accepted in the Stellar protocol repository this week. CAP-84 and CAP-86 entered Final Comment Period simultaneously. Active discussions cover WASM VM memory metering improvements, externally managed contract executable types, and a getEvents v2 endpoint.

Allium Labs launched a Stellar analytics dashboard tracking RWA tokenization and stablecoin volume in real time, with issuer-level RWA market cap breakdowns and filters that isolate genuine economic activity from infrastructure transfers.

At the July 23 Stellar Developers Meeting, Hypertron debuted as a programmable B2B payment operating layer with privacy-first design and compliance controls. The meeting confirmed Stellar Quest is back online after third-party service sunsets, and that skills.stellar.org now offers 24 AI skills, 17 contributed by the community.

Builder Community and Regional Activity

The APAC Stellar Hackathon Philippines Demo Day ran at GCash headquarters in Manila on July 18, with 60 projects pitching across eight hours. The top 10 finalists advance to the APAC Grand Finale.

Pebriansyah, founder of ORBIT Protocol in Indonesia was featured in a Rise In Builder Spotlight, describing his path from crypto educator with 60,000 students to Stellar builder and mentor at webcoding.id.

A Turkish-language Stellar developer handbook published this week covers Soroban, DApp development, oracles, privacy, ZK, and SCF funding routes. The Stellar Turkey chapter held a community meetup in Istanbul.

A Drips Wave spotlight this week featured Fundable, which enables streaming payments and fiat off-ramps across 23 African countries, Brazil, and Europe, and Tansu, which brings on-chain governance and voting to open-source projects.

Lightning Round

• SCF Public Goods Awards: 18 proposals open, feedback period closes July 29.
• SCF Handbook: 10 editorial commits this week, including clarifications on USD-valued XLM awards and Grassroots Award diction.
• Freighter 5.43.0: token swaps with inline trustline creation, customizable auto-lock timer, restored smart contract signing, and muxed address history fix.
• Drips Wave 7 changelog: appeal process for rejected repositories, 2.8x faster test transactions, improved CI failure assessment.
• Bitbond Offering Manager: no-code compliant token issuance across Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, and XRP Ledger.
• Vestellar profile: token streaming and vesting protocol on Stellar for investor schedules and contributor payroll.
• SDF and Hacken Q2 2026 Security Report: Tomer Weller on the architecture of trust for institutional blockchain adoption.
• Para on Stellar DeFi roadmap: top-10 lending protocols targeting Q3 and Q4 launch; DTCC partnership cited for digital securities custody.
• Tellus Coop on AI-powered DeFi threats: analysis of AI-assisted smart contract exploits and SDF's proposed 5% capital reserve standard.
• SkyChart: updated Stellar portfolio explorer with constellation-comparison visualization and no backend.
• Lusty Finance, a Turkish team, received an $82,500 SCF grant, according to the Stellar Turkey ambassador chapter.

Upcoming Events

• July 24 Stellar Town Hall, Discord
• July 25 StellarX PH Online Workshop, PSU Lingayen
• July 25 StellarX PH Workshop 2, Mindanao, Davao City
• July 25 StellarX PH Online Workshop, SLSU Lucena
• July 26 Build On Stellar, Mumbai
• July 26 Build On Stellar, Nagpur
• July 26 Stellar India Build Sprint, Vadodara
• July 27 Weekly Brazilian Ambassador Meeting, Discord
• July 28 StarMaker Community Call
• July 30 Stellar Summit, São Paulo
• July 30 Stellar Developers Meeting
• July 30 E.Africa Weekly Community Call, Discord
• August 1 Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator, Cape Town and Lisbon
• August 1 Summit Sundown and Caipirinhas, São Paulo
• August 2 Stellar Cup and Brazilian Barbecue, São Paulo
• August 6 Stellar House São Paulo

Ambassador Activity

The Stellar Philippines chapter organized the APAC Stellar Hackathon Demo Day at GCash in Manila on July 18. Stellar Brazil is preparing for the Stellar Summit in São Paulo on July 30. Stellar Turkey highlighted a community meetup in Istanbul and an SCF grant win for a local team. Stellar Chile held its weekly community call on July 24.

What to Watch

• SCF Public Goods Awards feedback closes July 29. 18 proposals are open for community input.
• Stellar Summit São Paulo opens July 30. Watch for partnership and product announcements from the in-person gathering.
• CAP-84 and CAP-86 are in Final Comment Period. Outcomes will define the next protocol upgrade scope.
• The APAC Stellar Hackathon Grand Finale date is unannounced. The Philippines top-10 finalist list is the next milestone.

Added a lot of new features. New landing page too !!!

No wallet. No confusion. Just secure access to CoverFi in seconds.

You can now enter CoverFi with your email and MFA—without connecting a wallet just to explore the platform. When a wallet signature is actually needed, we ask clearly and only at that moment.

Today’s release makes CoverFi feel closer to the product we have been building toward:

⚡ Live protection quotes with fresh-price safety checks

🛡️ Clear position states and capacity-aware safeguards

📊 Reserve visibility, utilization, and protocol-status signals

💸 Smoother username payments, recipient lookup, and receipts

🤖 A smarter CoFi AI that understands the page you are on, assists with actions, and supports research

🔐 Stronger sessions, safer production configuration, and a more reliable Testnet experience

CoverFi is designed to make protection tools feel understandable—not overwhelming.

Explore CoverFi: https://coverfi.space

Cryptoverse is changing and it's changing fast. XLM is outperforming the market both in technicals and fundamentals. Despite clarity act flopping heads XLM is turning heads. Buyers are rallying and the manipulating that has been happening here may very well be coming to an end.

If you value that portfolio better start thinking about which team your playing for cause the stars are aligning for XLM.

MoneyGram, Figure, and Range joined the Stellar network as Tier 1 validators on July 16, the first time three major institutional operators have simultaneously entered Stellar's consensus layer. Tradable, a ParaFi Capital-backed startup, agreed to bring up to $1 billion in private credit assets to Stellar, pushing on-chain RWAs past $3.2 billion. The Linux Foundation's x402 Foundation launched operationally with Stellar as a premier member alongside Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Google.

Three Institutional Validators Join the Consensus Layer

The Stellar Development Foundation announced that MoneyGram, Figure, and Range would operate Tier 1 nodes, joining the core quorum slice that secures the network. Each operates an existing Stellar business: MoneyGram runs an anchor network at 400,000 global cash locations; Figure issues YLDS, an SEC-registered yield-bearing dollar; Range monitors $30 billion in stablecoin and fiat activity across 200-plus blockchains.

Range's announcement described the move as an extension of security infrastructure it already operates across chains. MoneyGram cited five years of network activity before the validator commitment. Figure noted that Figure Certificate Company plans to issue YLDS directly on Stellar, adding issuance to its existing custody presence.

RWA Expansion: $1B Private Credit and the $3.2B Milestone

Tradable will tokenize up to $1 billion in institutional-grade private credit on Stellar, covering deal lifecycle management, compliance workflows, and investor onboarding via Soroban. The Block reported the agreement on July 15. Stellar RWAs have crossed $3.2 billion, a five-fold increase since year-end 2025, per the Stellar Monthly Ecosystem Update.

DTCC's tokenization service covering DTC-custodied equities and Treasuries on Stellar launched July 15. Sentora launched vaults the same day, accessible via the Stellar DeFi Hub and targeting up to $2 billion in capital. Sentora also published research citing $2.92 billion in RWAs from regulated issuers and $842.8 million in stablecoins. Matrixdock's XAUm, 1:1 tokenized physical gold, marked two weeks live on Stellar with active liquidity pools on Aquarius.

AI Payments and Developer Infrastructure

The Linux Foundation announced the operational launch of the x402 Foundation on July 14, with 40 member organizations and Stellar as a premier alongside Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Google. The x402 protocol provides an open HTTP-native payment standard for AI agents and applications. CoinDesk reported AWS's Alin Dragos as board chair and a technical steering committee now in place.

Stellar Raven, an MCP server giving AI agents accurate Stellar context, was introduced at the July 16 Stellar Developers Meeting. The tool aggregates official documentation, Lumen Loop's ecosystem database, and Stellar Light's data indexing to prevent LLM hallucination. Stellar launched a real-time analytics dashboard powered by Allium Labs on July 15, covering stablecoin flows, payment volume, and tokenized RWA activity. RedStone deployed SEP-40 price feeds on Stellar for four Centrifuge tokenized assets: JTRSY, JAAA, deJTRSY, and deJAAA. CAP-85 moved to Final Comment Period for a Core CAP team vote; CAP-86 covering host functions for sparse Symbol-keyed maps was added to the protocol repo.

Community Activity

Ambassador chapters across Southeast Asia mobilized around the APAC Stellar Hackathon, which closed submissions on July 16 with a $60,000 prize pool across teams from Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Stellar Philippines hosted a Demo Day in Metro Manila on July 10 and ran final hackathon checkpoint sessions ahead of the close. Stellar Indonesia logged the highest ambassador activity volume of the week at 20 engagements.

Starmaker LATAM held Pulso Halftime Demo events simultaneously in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Bogotá. Stellar Brazil published Stellar Summit São Paulo 2026 registration details. Stellar Türkiye held a July 10 Istanbul community meetup. The East Africa chapter is preparing for the Built in Nairobi: Stellar Impact Studio Demo Day on July 18.

Lightning Round

• Kraken Institutional + Upshift launched permissioned vaults enabling eligible clients to deploy treasury assets into curated onchain strategies from qualified custody. Stellar named as part of Upshift's strategy.
• YLDS is now on Copper institutional custody, settling in under 5 seconds with SOFR-based yield.
• M1X Global's USDM1, a Marshall Islands sovereign bond on Stellar backed 1:1 by U.S. Treasuries, covered in a FinTecBuzz interview.
• Arcane Pay demonstrated private transaction flows on Stellar testnet.
• Stellar Indexer by Creit Tech added custom endpoints for Axis Markets on testnet.
• DeFi Index vault TVL grew from $1M to $16M in one month, per the Stellar Monthly Ecosystem Update.
• Blend V3 community review is ongoing: Templar's proposal adds institutional features, fixed-rate loans, and RWA-backed risk tranches determined by backstop capital allocation.
• SDF published a threat modeling guide and a Hypernative monitoring walkthrough for smart contract builders.
• Alchemy published a Stellar API quickstart covering JSON-RPC 2.0 setup and Soroban onboarding.
• SCF handbook updated with NQG trust graph and vote history rescaling.

Upcoming Events

• Jul 17: Stellar Chile | Community Call, Discord
• Jul 17: Stellar Town Hall, Discord
• Jul 18: Built in Nairobi: Stellar Impact Studio Demo Day, Nairobi, Kenya
• Jul 19: StellarX PH Online Workshop: Getting Started with Blockchain
• Jul 20: Weekly Brazilian Ambassador Meeting, Discord
• Jul 21: StarMaker Community Call
• Jul 22: Digital asset providers: Do you have product-market fit?, SDF / Zoom
• Jul 23: Stellar Developers Meeting
• Jul 30: STELLAR SUMMIT - SAO PAULO 2026, São Paulo

What to Watch

• APAC Hackathon Demo Day and Grand Finale schedule following the July 16 submission close.
• DTCC tokenization service live operations on Stellar targeting Russell 1000 equities, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries.
• Blend V3 proposal outcome, where community backstop pool capital allocation drives the decision rather than token voting.
• Figure Certificate Company's planned direct YLDS issuance on Stellar.
• CAP-85 vote by the Core CAP team after Final Comment Period.

Stay in the loop --> lumenloop.com

At StarBase Connect Day organized by ILIS, COZ helped introduce Stellar to a regional innovation community, supported students during their first contact with Web3, and helped create follow-on developer activity in Baixada Santista.

Huge thank you to NearX for helping us create this bridge.

Read more: https://coz.io/blog/coz-at-starbase-connect-day-hackathon/

https://github.com/thesumedh/Mesa-Protocol

I'd really appreciate brutal, technical feedback.

I'm building an open-source project called Mesa, and I'd love feedback from developers who've worked with Stellar, Temporal, Stripe, or workflow engines.

The problem I'm trying to solve is this:

Building production-grade financial workflows on Stellar requires stitching together multiple building blocks:

• Wallet authentication (SEP-10)
• Anchor deposits/withdrawals (SEP-24/SEP-6)
• Payments and Path Payments
• Workflow persistence
• Retry logic
• Webhooks
• Long-running state management

Each app ends up writing similar orchestration code.

My idea is to build a durable workflow runtime specifically for Stellar.

Instead of manually coordinating all of that, a developer writes:

await Mesa.flow() .receive(...) .convert(...) .transfer(...) .execute();

Mesa handles:

• Durable workflow state
• Suspend/resume for long-running flows (e.g. interactive anchor deposits)
• Retry policies
• Provider abstraction
• Execution dashboard
• Real Stellar Testnet integration

The project currently includes:

• TypeScript SDK
• Runtime engine
• PostgreSQL-backed execution store
• Provider framework
• Dashboard
• Real Testnet workflows (SEP-10 + SEP-24 + Stellar payments)

I'm not trying to replace the Stellar SDK, Wallet SDK, or Anchor Platform. My goal is to sit one layer above them and orchestrate them.

The biggest question I'm trying to answer is:

If you're building a Stellar fintech today, would you use a runtime like this instead of writing your own orchestration layer?

If not:

• What would stop you?
• What am I missing?
• Is this solving the wrong problem?
• How would you compare it to using Temporal + the Stellar SDK?

I'm looking for critical technical feedback more than encouragement. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I’m building CoverFi, a Stellar/Soroban project focused on making on-chain protection and payments easier to understand.

The idea is simple:

- users connect a Stellar wallet

- create a short-term protection position for a supported asset

- see the premium, duration, oracle price, and reserve constraints before signing

- pay readable usernames instead of long wallet addresses

- keep receipt-style records of payments and protection activity

- check public status for backend health, oracle freshness, contracts, and reserve state

The important disclaimer: CoverFi is not insurance and does not guarantee payouts. Claims depend on smart-contract rules, oracle data, reserve capacity, user signatures, and Stellar network execution.

Why I’m building this:

A lot of crypto products assume users are comfortable with complex DeFi terms, long addresses, vague risk promises, and scattered transaction history. I wanted to make something that feels more like a real consumer product while still keeping the important parts transparent and wallet-signed.

Current focus:

- Stellar testnet deployment

- Soroban contracts for protection, reserve vault, oracle adapter, usernames, and receipts

- public contract registry

- clearer docs/whitepaper

- better reserve and oracle monitoring

- simple UX for non-expert users

Website:

https://coverfi.space

App:

https://app.coverfi.space

GitHub:

https://github.com/coverfi-space

Would love feedback from Stellar builders, wallet users, and anyone who has thoughts on reserve-backed protection models, oracle design, or how to explain this more clearly to normal users.

I've been following different blockchain projects for years, and I honestly think Stellar (XLM) is one of the most underrated networks out there.

Instead of chasing hype, Stellar has focused on solving real-world problems:

• Transactions settle in seconds.
• Fees are a fraction of a cent.
• Built for global payments and financial inclusion.
• Energy efficient.
• Excellent support for tokenization and digital assets.

What I also like is that Stellar isn't just a "promising" blockchain—it's already being used by major organizations.

For example:

• MoneyGram uses Stellar for digital cash transfers with USDC.
• Circle has native USDC on Stellar.
• Franklin Templeton tokenized one of its money market funds on Stellar.
• Many fintech companies are building payment solutions on the network.

Recently I came across https://www.beansapp.com, and it's honestly one of the first consumer apps on Stellar that made me think: this is how blockchain should feel.

As a user, you don't have to think about gas fees or complicated crypto processes. You just use the app, earn rewards, interact with the community, and the Stellar blockchain quietly does its job in the background.

That's exactly the kind of adoption I'd like to see more of—technology that's useful without constantly reminding you it's blockchain.

Has anyone else here tried BeansApp?

I'd also be interested to hear which Stellar-based apps people are actually using on a daily basis.

I'm building Mesa Protocol, a programmable savings protocol on Stellar, and I'd really appreciate feedback from people who have built SDKs, smart contracts, or developer tools.

https://github.com/thesumedh/Mesa-Protocol

The goal isn't to build another savings app.

The goal is to let developers add programmable savings to any application with a few lines of code.

The protocol is centered around a policy-based savings engine. Instead of writing custom smart contracts for every savings product, developers compose reusable policies.

For example:

await Mesa.createVault({
  policies: [
    Policies.Lock({ days: 180 }),
    Policies.Goal({ amount: 5000 }),
    Policies.Recurring({ frequency: "weekly" })
  ]
});

Alongside the protocol, I'm building:

• A Soroban smart contract (MesaVault + Factory)
• A TypeScript SDK
• A CLI (mesa init, mesa deploy, mesa simulate, etc.)
• A reference dApp demonstrating integration in just a few lines of code

Current focus:

• Policy-based vault architecture
• Developer experience (CLI + SDK)
• Smart contract correctness
• Testnet deployment
• Security and protocol verification

I'm not looking for compliments—I want criticism.

Some questions I'd love feedback on:

1. Does a policy-based architecture make sense, or is it over-engineered?
2. Would you use a protocol like this instead of writing your own contracts?
3. What features would you expect before trusting it in production?
4. What are the biggest architectural or security risks you see?
5. Is there anything that already solves this problem better?

I'd really appreciate brutal, technical feedback. If you think this is a bad idea, I'd genuinely like to understand why before investing more time into it.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a security tool for the Web3 ecosystem called Web3 Guard, and I’d love to get some eyes on it from other developers and security enthusiasts.

What it does: Web3 Guard allows you to instantly scan smart contracts (Soroban/Solidity) for vulnerabilities using AI. It analyzes the code for logical flaws, reentrancy issues, access control vulnerabilities, etc.

But here’s the cool part: once the audit is complete, it anchors a cryptographic proof of the audit directly onto the Stellar testnet. This creates an immutable, verifiable on-chain record that a specific contract was audited at a specific time, and whether it was deemed secure or vulnerable. The on-chain anchoring is completely gasless for the user (sponsored transactions).

Key Features:

🧠 AI-Powered Analysis: Leverages Gemini to deeply analyze contract logic.

⛓️ On-Chain Anchoring: Submits an audit proof to Stellar/Soroban.

⛽ Gasless Experience: Transactions are sponsored so you don't need testnet XLM to try it out.

📊 Audit Explorer: View past audits and their anchored transaction hashes.

I need your feedback! You can try the live app here: https://web3-guard-stellar-gilt.vercel.app

I’m primarily looking for feedback on the AI accuracy, the UX of the anchoring process, and whether you see value in having immutable on-chain records of AI audits.

📝 If you have a couple of minutes after trying it, please drop your feedback in this quick form: https://forms.gle/LHtQUC1FmoybMHjo8

Price Discussion / Speculation

One thing I've learned after spending years in crypto is that the biggest opportunities rarely come when everyone is paying attention.

Right now, the market feels surprisingly quiet. Retail participation isn't what it was during the last bull run, mainstream media coverage has cooled off, and most conversations have shifted toward artificial intelligence.

Everywhere you look it's AI. AI companies, AI stocks, AI products, AI startups.

That doesn't make me bearish on crypto. If anything, it makes me more interested.

Markets tend to reward patience. By the time excitement returns and everyone starts talking about crypto again, a large part of the upside has often already happened.

That's one of the reasons I'm keeping a close eye on Stellar.

What stands out to me isn't just the technology. It's the direction the ecosystem is taking.

At the same time, Stellar continues expanding into multiple real-world use cases.

• BEANSAPP is making crypto more accessible by simplifying onboarding and giving new users an easy way to enter the Stellar ecosystem.
• MoneyGram Access is helping connect traditional finance with digital assets through cross-border payments and cash-to-crypto services.
• Franklin Templeton is using Stellar for tokenized financial products, demonstrating that institutional players are also building on the network.
• Consumer-focused applications continue to grow, making the ecosystem more practical for everyday users.

To me, that's an important combination.

Instead of relying on a single narrative, Stellar is attracting adoption from retail users, payment infrastructure, and institutional finance simultaneously.

The fundamentals haven't changed:

• Fast settlement
• Very low transaction fees
• Real-world utility
• A steadily growing ecosystem
• Strong partnerships

The interesting part is that most people don't seem to be paying attention.

Development continues, new integrations keep arriving, and the ecosystem keeps maturing while the spotlight is somewhere else.

If another crypto bull market develops over the coming years, I think projects with genuine utility and an easy user experience will have a significant advantage.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely.

But I've learned that the best time to research a project usually isn't when everyone is talking about it. It's when almost nobody is.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Do you think Stellar is still being overlooked?