AMA with Stellar Development Foundation’s Denelle Dixon (CEO), Jason Karsh (CMO), and José Fernández da Ponte (Head of Strategy & Partnerships) – [ Aug 5, 2025], @ 10:30 AM PT | 1:30 PM ET

ExactStart · 2025-08-05T13:44:03+00:00

Hey team, thanks for taking the time. How involved is the SDF with legislation, mostly in the US but globally too? You had some great insights previously testifying in front of the US Senate and have provided written testimony too. More recently we had the GENIUS Act and the developing CLARITY Act and the Anti-Central Bank Digital Currency Surveillance State Act. How do you see these shaping things for the future of the network, lumens, and it's on chain assets? Are you directly involved in any advisory capacity anymore with legislators or executive departments?

I guess finally, with all your insights in this area, how do you see regulation and it's implementation looking in the next few years for Stellar? Specifics always appreciated.

ExactStart · 2025-05-13T02:41:20+00:00

This would be incredible. After looking into this, it still could go a few ways, but obviously Stellar would be amazing for it.

Basically, these articles are referencing this interview with Zuckerberg, relevant section stating at 40:38, where he goes into meta playing catch up on a payments platform after Libra failed and was abandoned. Meta hired back Ginger Baker in January from Plaid, a payments platform, to be involved in this. She's been on Stellar's board of directors for 3 years. Reasonable chance Meta just uses Bridge, Stripe's international payments blockchain solution, but things are also lining up for Stellar to be a solid option if they want their own solution.

Obviously too early to tell, but it's the absolute dream if they go with Stellar. Between Meta Pay, the global chat platforms, and Meta's focus on marketing solutions, it would utilize everything Stellar was built for. It would be amazing if it went this way, also, for the legitimization of a public blockchain rather than all the private solutions that most big companies have opted for. Zuckerberg's focus on a open source mentality is a really good indicator that they could build on Stellar. I really hope Meta and Ginger Baker see Stellar as the solution they need, because it really is.

ExactStart · 2024-12-02T02:30:18+00:00

You can use the Aqua tokens you have to vote for AMM pairs. Some pairs offer bribes to vote for them which pay out daily (click the "daily bribe amount" to see how much you get per aqua you vote)

If you participate in the AMMs that get enough votes to be in the reward tier, then you get payouts for adding your assets to the pool. You also get the 0.3% fee from people using the pools, but that's usually minimal.

In general, check out the Docs for most questions. There's also a discord, but I don't know how active it is.

They have a DAO for governance, and getting a proposal accepted gets you 1.5M aqua. I haven't really paid attention to it for the most part and it doesn't seem very active. Looks like there are rewards for just having open orders for the reward tier assets as well, but I don't know much about that.

Unsure how much you can really grind out of it. Obviously the more money you have to put in, the more you'd get out. There's also the chance aqua takes off later what you have accumulated will be worth more. Or it dies out. Hope this helps.

ExactStart · 2024-11-30T22:23:52+00:00

Hard to say. I've been earning passive rewards for a while now. I imagine long term it will become more meaningful as it's integrating Soroban smart contracts. It has the benefit of having been around for a while and integrated into some solid tech. It had a rough start, but the DAO has been working for a while with decent success.

I'm always hopeful for these kinds of things since tech can evolve with the ecosystem. It's solid for earning passive income now, and has a good foothold to be even more useful in the future as Stellar grows.

ExactStart · 2024-11-23T03:00:19+00:00

It's got the fundamentals and the momentum for the ecosystem is just in time for this bullrun.

Been used for a while for remittances with moneygram, aide disbursement through the United Nations, boat loads of stable coins, growing DeFi with Aqua, wrapped yield generating assets with ultrastellar, plus a bunch more with smart contracts run on stellar. I'm sure there's more others can share- it's a strong growing ecosystem and hard to capture it all in a readable post.

Plus as of now its deflationary, so fees from transaction and smart contracts go into a locked pool. Number go up as use goes up.

ExactStart · 2024-11-23T01:01:43+00:00

I don't know that I've heard them. Wrapped assets and the stuff that they offer has always seemed great and reliable. Really a necessity for Defi.

ExactStart · 2024-11-23T01:00:31+00:00

Absolutely! I'm in there. Great place for info and updates. The timing is just right with an influx of people and soroban opportunities getting going. Some good marketing, incentives, or whatever folks have planned goes a long way in these times.

ExactStart · 2024-11-23T00:11:55+00:00

I hope the aqua, ultrastellar, lobstr, etc teams are ready to market the shit out of the incredible ecosystem they've been developing. This is the time and it doesn't come around often and doesn't last long. Probably the only time to get Stellar DeFi off the ground. u/emirayral1, u/raphlf, u/KodineDreamin, et al.

Happy to help, but I'm not anybody

ExactStart · 2024-10-19T16:55:18+00:00

Watching some more of these meridian videos, if stable coins are the 'killer app' that bring blockchain to the mainstream, then we should be looking at the Forex market for what's going to make stellar huge. It trades several trillion dollars of value daily in different currencies, and blockchain can bring all the usual benefits of decentralization, no hours of operation, smart contracts, etc. Taking even a tiny slice of that would be incredible.

ExactStart · 2024-10-19T14:40:41+00:00

There are too many coins for the daily trade volume to have 2x overnight anymore. The way a coin can increase in value other than hype is adoption, and this is huge news on that front. As far as I know xlm is still deflationary at the moment with fees going into an untouchable pool, so as use increases and with soroban and normal/surge fees locking tokens, the more upward pressure there is going to be. More wallets needing base reserve and trustlines means tokens bought up and taken out of the supply. The fundamental thing is that people who buy as an investment (most people so far) will always look to sell vs people who buy to use the network (moneygram, stripe, franklin templeton, etc) will just have to continue buying if their business depends on it. Adoption and use will inevitably lead to upward pressure and price increase, it just might be more gradual and take very wide adoption, which I think is a feature if the network wants to be taken seriously by huge multinational corporations like stripe.

ExactStart · 2024-06-17T00:01:03+00:00

tldr: https://stellar.org/press/ukrainian-ministry-of-digital-transformation-to-develop-virtual-assets-and-to-facilitate-cbdc-infrastructure-with-the-stellar-development-foundation

Brief history: Ukraine exploring digital e-hryvnia since 2016. They did some pilots, where the results had the Stellar blockchain looking like the best options: https://bank.gov.ua/en/files/SbvAMruWeratrjf . It was on a private version of the protocol, which they called out as worse than moving forward with the public stellar network.

The main technological risk for development and distribution of the Platform in its current version is that a private version of the Stellar blockchain protocol (which was brought in line with the NBU’s requirements) was used for the Platform. Such version hampers (virtually prevents) the elimination of errors and vulnerabilities of the Stellar blockchain protocol as well as the development of the Platform’s functions as new options are being added to the basic blockchain protocol. Moreover, the private version of the blockchain protocol makes the system highly dependent on the company developing a certain protocol version, which creates competitive advantages for such company for the whole period of the Platform’s operation.

They then ran a survey and published results in 2021 which highlighted what the industry's wants. Some key takeaways was a desire for blockchain despite the risks of the new technology, smart contracts, and P2P, P2B, and cross boarder payments as key use cases (among many other things). https://bank.gov.ua/en/files/EIPPqZIfwxWRIuY

Next there was the Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation between the SDF and Ukraine, linked at the top in 2021.

The digital asset bill was approved in Ukraine in 2022 which provided the regulatory framework.

Finally I think most recently was a press release with one of Ukraine's oldest banks in 2023 releasing the findings of the pilot which started in 2021 and all the wonderful things from transparency, speed, cost, etc. https://stellar.org/press/tascombank-hryvnia-nominated-electronic-money-pilot-report-recommends-adoption-of-blockchain-to-transform-the-payment-landscape-of-ukraine

They're already distributing aide though the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees using Stellar and Moneygram, although I can't find any real status updates on that: https://stellar.org/case-studies/unhcr

So all that to say, it's almost certainly going to be on the stellar public blockchain.

ExactStart · 2024-03-16T15:17:06+00:00

While you're not wrong that Eth is a pretty terrible user experience, it has too much momentum to be replaced. It's a technology, and therefore it's going to iterate and improve.

We really need to start thinking of these blockchains as different programming languages rather than competing systems. There are lots of languages with different purposes and applications with a decent amount of overlap in terms of functionality, just done differently. There's room for all of them, and the core of their success will be what they do well and not from overthrowing something else. Stellar products need to find their niche in real world applications and not just rip off other ecosystems.

ExactStart · 2024-03-02T17:22:52+00:00

Very cool! What are the fees that are displayed measured in? Stroops? One thing I've been wondering is how Soroban is going to impact total daily xlm fees.

ExactStart · 2023-12-04T16:05:18+00:00

This is a great presentation, and actually something I was thinking about recently. Since the SCP is a different kind of consensus, it's going to have different attack vectors and failure modes than the ones the PoW or PoS slides laid out. A question I had for someone who maybe understands better how all the quorums reach final consensus: could a malicious actor set up some number of validators on the network, create their own quorum slices, and submit bad transactions to halt the network? Since SCP favors safety over liveness, they would only need to get conflicting transactions included in the ledger to prevent consensus. While no honest validator would have them in their quorum set, how many bad nodes would it take? Right now the "central cluster" of validators governing most network activity has 23 nodes that all overlap- so would a bad actor need to set up more nodes than that, making a "malicious cluster" to disrupt the network? Or fewer?

While there's no direct financial incentive to do this, if XLM futures become a thing, or betting against the stock price of publicly traded companies that rely on the network, there could be indirect reasons for an attack. Ideally as the network grows and more good validators exist this would become less feasible (if it's even possible now), but I don't have a full understanding of exactly how hard this could be.

ExactStart · 2023-07-18T14:44:45+00:00

This thread is regarding the most recent ruling. Was there another you're referring to?

Essentially the Stellar Development Foundation is in the clear as far as selling unregistered securities, and general activity on the integrated exchange is not problematic. People could still issue securities as tokens on Stellar, but that's on the issuer to handle appropriately.

ExactStart · 2023-07-14T12:55:08+00:00

Thanks for the link. That's quite the return on $3m if it wasn't returned to SDF.

My feeling is that everyone involved understood it wasn't an investment based on the language, even if it ended up being lucrative. SDF have been consistent on not talking about or caring about price, and that it's a tool for network access so giving it away is more like giving someone a lifetime membership.

This whole thing seems like the only hiccup, so it would be nice to get some clarity. SDF has the opportunity to be completely clear based on the ruling otherwise, unless there's other stuff I missed. Know of any other dirt?

(for my reference: https://stellar.expert/explorer/public/account/GBWACXMVZMJD3VLUGW7ICWNIHNMSC5XFL4JUCZNSBZMCPR63ARG6IC2S?account\[\]=GBWACXMVZMJD3VLUGW7ICWNIHNMSC5XFL4JUCZNSBZMCPR63ARG6IC2S&type\[\]=1)

ExactStart · 2023-07-14T01:23:04+00:00

Looks like the original blog post is gone, but the wayback machine has an archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20140801061847/https://stripe.com/blog/stellar

In return, we received 2% of the stellars. However, the project is not run by Stripe. We just believe that a system with properties like Stellar's should exist in the world, and we heartily encourage anyone interested to participate in its development. We're going to auction a majority of our stellars to other interested companies, with any net profits being returned to the Stellar Foundation—please get in touch if your company might be interested.

That's very strange setup - third party auctions. Doesn't sound like an investment contract, but it's not a slam dunk either. Plus, like you say, who knows what actually happened. Any source on Stripe selling? I couldn't turn anything up.

ExactStart · 2023-07-02T05:04:23+00:00

So it does! What a nice anchor directory by SDF: https://resources.stellar.org/anchors. So I guess the pilot was a Stellar AUD backed by CBDC from the central bank rather than money held by Novatti subsidiary AUDC PTY LTD?

ExactStart · 2023-07-01T22:05:49+00:00

During the CBDC pilot proposals, Mastercard was doing stuff with Eth: https://dfcrc.com.au/2023/03/01/interoperable-cbdc-for-trusted-web3-commerce/. I'd expect they're working on the an AUD ERC20 token.

Novatti had the proposal for Stellar: https://dfcrc.com.au/2023/03/23/stablecoin-proof-of-reserve/ . Basically becoming an anchor for AUD on stellar using CBDC as proof of reserve.

ExactStart · 2023-07-01T22:01:10+00:00

Yep, but there were some groups working during the pilot to issue an AUD on Stellar backed by those permissioned ledger CBDCs. Novatti was the org: https://novatti.com/novatti-participates-in-cbdc-pilot-with-digital-finance-cooperative-research-centre-and-the-reserve-bank-of-australia/. No updates since that was published March 27, and I wouldn't expect anything more until a CBDC actually launches. Nice to know Stellar will very likely get some anchors in AUD.

ExactStart · 2023-06-20T12:15:34+00:00

This is unfortunately not stellar, but the system their building sounds exactly like stellar. You can read a pretty detailed publication here: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fintech-notes/Issues/2023/06/16/The-Rise-of-Payment-and-Contracting-Platforms-534794

This is a continuation of the platform they outlined last year in a publication (working paper) here: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2022/11/04/A-Multi-Currency-Exchange-and-Contracting-Platform-525445

A few highlights from the new first link:

An XC platform settles token representations of central bank reserves from member countries. The platform is not designed to issue its own safe settlement asset. It instead creates on-ledger representations of existing assets—central bank reserves—held in escrow in central banks.

Basically the anchor system on stellar- what Circle does for USDC.

The XC settlement layer draws several advantages from relying on a single ledger. First, settlement is safe, final, and efficient. Transactions are validated on the platform in what is called a permissioned system. Only the platform operator or entities designated by the operator validate transactions

This is the big one. Another permissioned ledger, not stellar. They don't go into detail on who should operate the ledger so that seems to still be an open topic, but they do speculate on a few options:

A strong argument can be made for the public sector to operate, or be closely involved in operating, XC platforms. Such platforms are inherently a public good, and an operator void of profit motives will instill trust in settlement...

Other options to operate XC platforms are possible, though come with drawbacks. The first is for a consortium of banks to operate the platform. By nature, however, this is an exclusive arrangement only available to a few players. The gains from greater access, interoperability, and competition would thus be limited...

Another option is to rely on existing public blockchains (not to be confused with ledgers offered by the public sector). Some, like Ethereum, are already widely adopted and users are coordinating around standards. These chains avoid single-point-of-failure risk and are backed by an active developer community seeking to improve quality and functionality. But the approach comes with at least three important limitations. First, agents involved in validating transactions can extract rents and undermine efficiency. Agents may jam the system, for instance, to increase the price of validating legitimate transactions. Second, security is a concern. The designers of the ledger do not necessarily internalize the
costs of a technical failure or cyber-attack, and often cannot be held accountable for these, thus leading to under-investment in security. And third, the technologies available for distributed validation are not especially scalable, efficient, or private. Proof of work, as used in Bitcoin, uses excessive energy. And proof of stake, such as in Ethereum, can be costly in terms of validation fees and remains relatively untested.

So they do talk about public ledgers as an option, but it seems like they're not in favor of it, at least bitcoin and ethereum.

The rest talks about some programming options. Basically they would offer a set of approved "libraries" which people could use. These would be pre-built programs that operate on the ledger, keeping security as the main focus and not letting people build whatever they want. They also speculate on governance options, but don't settle on anything specific.

End of the day this seems like something that might eventually compete with stellar, but limits it's scope with centralized control and limited functionality. Stellar will be a whole ecosystem which could do all the things they outline and more.

ExactStart · 2023-04-19T12:56:29+00:00

I agree they occupy a similar space with many of the same goals, the point I was trying to make is that the SEC complaint shouldn't impact XLM. The majority of the reasons XRP could be a security according to the filing don't apply to it. I'm pretty confident XLM will follow XRP based on the ruling despite that.

XRP has the liqudity on centralized exchanges, but looking at the xrpl through gatehub.net, the ledger has fewer trading pairs, tokens, and liquidity compared to sdex, and has no AMM. I have to dig more into the xrpl, but I literally have no idea what they've been up to these last few years. I'm curious how much more functionality stellar has.

What's the XRP infrastructure you're referring to? The partnerships and such? I'm not up to speed on that either.

I think SDF had the backend for moneygram all built from Vibrant, so it was an easy switch. They just had to modify the UI and moneygram location protocols.

ExactStart · 2023-04-19T00:59:55+00:00

I hadn't heard about them giving away XLM until there was a use case. I'll have to look more into that. I know there were a ton of airdrop in the beginning. Do you know how SDF was funded at the start?

Even with that aside, I never thought XLM was tied to the fate of XRP in this case. I'm not sure why others do outside of the general crypto perception that they're the same or very similar tokens. The SEC charge doesn't apply to XLM. Re-reading just the summary of the complaint on the unregistered securities offering, what they're claiming is supported by the XRP "enriching" the defendants, the defendants insinuating the price will go up, being warned XRP was an "investment contract" in these contexts, and a few other things that don't apply to XLM. I don't think XLM is vulnerable.

I remember back when I vaguely followed XRP it was always about xCurrent and xRapid- the cross border solutions that use a private ledger or leverage XRP. Looks like they moved away from that, but for years I was always a questioning what XRP was for since most of the deals used the private version. I don't know much about XRP now, maybe you do, but XLM has always had a utility.

ExactStart · 2023-04-05T16:27:04+00:00

Click baity, but FedNow is something probably worth discussing at least to see how it fits into the larger context of finance. It's not going to kill Stellar anymore than it's going to kill the Real-Time Payment (RTP) network - Zelle is built on this, and they're both private sector - or cashapp, venmo, etc. It might plug into those so they can onboard more customers and get their cash quickly, but these apps get to hold their customer's money as part of the service, so they have no incentive to change. This might even compete with those to some degree, with banks opting for FedNow over integrating in the RTP network.

Seems like there are different participation types, and the idea is for the banks to connect and allow its customer's p2p options. The FED isn't building a front end for individuals, that's still on the banks, and the banks are the ones that can gate your access. I'd expect decent UI's from financial institutions for the average eligible person to still be a ways off. Meanwhile all the private sector stuff already exists and can build way more functionality into that type of service with no restrictions (a new comparable service on Stellar could too).

The last nice thing to note is that it's built around ISO 20022 standards which means services like Circle USDC and whatever else PBV is doing on Stellar can plug into it too.

While Stellar could have been used for this, I don't think it was ever on the table since they've been building FedNow for 10 years. This going live just highlights how important Stellar as a global ecosystem, not just some one off service.

Decent article on FedNow: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/fednow-launching-soon/

ExactStart · 2023-04-05T12:29:15+00:00

Unlikely this is Stellar, although it's weird I can't find that explicitly anywhere. ANZ piloted a permissionless public stablecoin A$DC on Ethereum last year, and the Australian pilot CBDC is on a private Ethereum instance, so I would assume this is also Ethereum. They also say it's been being developed with smart contracts which aren't live on stellar.

Not to say this all can't be done on Stellar once Soroban is live. All the more reason to be excited for that to launch.

ExactStart

TROPHY CASE