Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Ascend and M1X Global completed the first institutional repo on Stellar (XLM), using tokenized sovereign bond USDM1 and 72 automated hourly rolls over three days.

@AscendFi Markets and @M1XGlobal have completed the first institutional repurchase agreement (repo) on the @StellarOrg blockchain, using a tokenized sovereign bond as collateral. The trade ran with no manual intervention across a three-day window that included overnight and weekend hours.

Because the rolls were automated, financing continued outside normal market hours, a feature of 24/7 on-chain markets that traditional repo desks do not offer.

Terms of the trade and the collateralThe collateral was $USDM1.

The structure differs from many tokenized Treasury products.

Why it matters for StellarThe deal extends Stellar beyond its established payments focus.

Ascend has also received backing from the network's main steward. The Stellar Development Foundation made a strategic investment in the firm, which

The test was a single transaction, and the companies have not disclosed its size in the release. Whether tokenized sovereign collateral gains wider acceptance among lenders will depend on further repeat trades and broader institutional uptake.

Sources:

Business Wire: Ascend and M1X Global complete first institutional repo on StellarThe Block: Paradigm leads $5.5 million seed round in M1X GlobalStellar: SDF strategic investment in Ascend

Ripple filed its comment letter on the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, supporting to finalize the proposed crypto rules. It rests on the Howey test, treating the investment contract, not the crypto asset itself as the security, and builds on a prior joint SEC-CFTC harmonization initiative.

Ripple CLO Stuart Alderoty said “We support the proposal, and the SEC has clear authority to adopt it.” He added that previous “case by case, coin by coin” enforcement has pushed crypto innovation offshore. He claimed the industry needs holistic rules for digital assets, and the Regulation Crypto Assets framework is a major move.

The proposal stays faithful to the Howey Test. Ripple CLO clarified the investment contract is a security, not a token. Stuart Alderoty cited that Ripple has spent more than $150 million to get clarity on XRP not a security.

“What matters is what an issuer actually promised and when those promises end, not a subjective decentralization test,” he added. Clear rules grounded in existing law will bring capital, investor protection and innovation to the U.S.

Also Read: XRP Finally Launches Official X Account and Website Managed by Ripple and XRPLF

Cardano, Chainlink, Hedera, Stellar & Others Join Ripple on SEC’s Regulation Crypto Assets
Chainlink partnered with Cardano, Hedera, Stellar, Aptos, and Avalanche in urging the SEC to codify its digital commodity framework. With Ripple seeking to exempt certain crypto assets from full SEC securities registration, the Blockchain Association also urged raising the startup exemption limit from $5 million to $10 million.

“Builders need lasting certainty. Codifying this progress would be a meaningful step toward keeping America the home of digital asset innovation,” said Chainlink head of policy Taylor Barr.

.@chainlink is proud to partner with @hedera, @Aptos, @AvaLabs, and @StellarOrg in urging the SEC to codify its digital commodity framework.

Builders need lasting certainty. Codifying this progress would be a meaningful step toward keeping America the home of digital asset… pic.twitter.com/rAjs9C6vdy

— Taylor Barr (@taylorjbarr) October 20, 2026

Although the official comment period for the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets closed on October 20, the commission will continue accepting public feedback after the deadline, according to journalist Eleanor Terrett.

“While we encourage commenters to submit their feedback by the deadline, the Commission will continue to accept public comments on rule proposals after the comment period closes.”

The new crypto rules would create new fundraising exemptions for crypto issuers raising capital in the U.S., while the CLARITY Act developments remain uncertain ahead of midterm elections.

Also Read: Best Crypto Compliance Companies and KYC Providers for Web3 Enterprises

Stellar, a blockchain platform focused on facilitating fast and low-cost cross-border transactions, reported significant growth in stablecoin transactions, tokenized asset adoption, and developer activity in its third-quarter update released ahead of the Meridian conference.

Key network and ecosystem developmentsAccording to Stellar’s latest report, stablecoin volume on the network saw a 121% increase from the previous quarter. The total value of real-world assets (RWAs) tokenized on Stellar reached $4.1 billion by the end of the quarter. These numbers reflect growing demand for blockchain-powered payments and financial products.

Stablecoins play a crucial role on the network, supporting digital dollar transfers and settlement, while tokenized assets enable the blockchain-based representation of traditional financial instruments. With broadening adoption in these sectors, Stellar aims to become a leader in the evolving digital finance landscape.

Stellar recorded $4.1 billion in real-world assets, a 121% jump in stablecoin volumes, and 3,922 monthly active developers, underscoring surging use in the network’s core areas.

The quarterly report also notes that Stellar has added new Tier 1 validators, implemented two protocol upgrades, and maintained 99.99% network uptime. The number of active monthly developers reached 3,922, reflecting a steady increase in community engagement and technical contributions.

This growth highlights Stellar’s strategy to enhance infrastructure, reliability, and ecosystem development as the network positions itself for broader institutional and retail use.

Mini dictionary: Real-world assets (RWAs) are traditional assets such as currencies, commodities, or stocks that have been tokenized and represented on a blockchain network to enable easier trading and settlement.

Stablecoin and tokenized asset surgeRecent data confirm that real-world asset tokenization has emerged as a major driver of activity on Stellar. As banks and financial institutions increasingly explore blockchain for settlements and asset issuance, networks supporting RWAs, including Stellar, are attracting new use cases and users.

The rapid increase in stablecoin volumes illustrates heightened interest in digital dollar and fiat-backed transactions. Combined with rising developer contributions, these trends point to substantial growth across multiple aspects of the Stellar ecosystem.

However, analysts note that an increase in network activity and tokenized value does not directly translate into higher demand or price appreciation for XLM, the native asset of the network. Market movements in XLM still depend on trading dynamics and broader cryptocurrency market conditions.

MetricQ2 2026Q3 2026Stablecoin volumeLower by 121%Up 121% quarter over quarterReal-World Assets (RWAs)Not specified$4.1 billionActive monthly developersNot specified3,922XLM price technical outlookXLM, Stellar’s native token, is trading near $0.176 as of the most recent updates. Crypto analyst Crypto With Gopal has identified a falling wedge formation on XLM’s price chart. The analyst stated that a breakout above $0.180 could trigger a move toward $0.190, with a broader upside target of $0.220 if buying momentum continues.

Crypto With Gopal highlighted that a breakthrough above $0.180 may lead to a price reversal targeting $0.190, with $0.220 as a longer-term resistance point.

Traders are closely monitoring the $0.180 resistance area. A sustained move above this level could signal a shift from the current consolidation phase, but analysts caution that technical breakout patterns alone may not guarantee further price recovery.

Conversely, if XLM fails to hold its support near $0.174, the token could face renewed selling pressure, potentially slowing the recent recovery effort despite the network’s positive fundamentals.

Meridian conference and upcoming catalystsThe upcoming Meridian conference, organized by Stellar, is expected to provide more insights into the network’s ongoing development, partnerships, and overall growth strategy. The event will focus on advances in payments, stablecoins, and tokenized assets as Stellar seeks to consolidate its role in the digital finance sector.

The ability of Stellar to maintain momentum, strengthen its ecosystem, and translate network usage into value for XLM will be key areas of focus for both investors and analysts in the near term.

DTCC will launch its Tokenization Service on the Canton Network and Besu this month, with Stellar (XLM) and Circle's Arc expected to join in 2027, per its roadmap.

DTCC (@The_DTCC) will launch its Tokenization Service this month on the @CantonNetwork and Besu, DTCC's private network. The service starts with 25 stocks, ETFs and US Treasuries, tokenized 1:1 with securities held at DTC and transferable 24/7 between registered wallets. DTCC puts the pool of assets available to tokenize at about $30 trillion.

@StellarOrg and Circle's @arc are expected to join in 2027, per DTCC's roadmap, which the company says may still change.

From no-action letter to commercial launchThe rollout follows a December 2025 no-action letter from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. According to DTCC, the letter authorizes its subsidiary, the Depository Trust Company (DTC), to offer a tokenization service on pre-approved blockchains for three years. The digital version carries the same entitlements, investor protections and ownership rights as the traditional asset.

The authorization covers a defined set of liquid assets. These include the Russell 1000, which tracks the 1,000 largest publicly traded US companies by market capitalization, as well as ETFs tracking major indices and US Treasury bills, bonds and notes, DTCC said.

The service has already seen live activity. Crypto.news reported that more than 30 firms took part in production transactions on July 15 using tokenized representations of assets held at DTC. The conversions ran across DTCC's private Besu network and the public Canton Network. The transactions included securities lending, collateral pledges, equity transfers and US Treasury repurchase agreements.

Stellar and Arc on the 2027 roadmapDTCC and the Stellar Development Foundation announced in May that DTC-tokenized assets are expected to go live on the Stellar network in the first half of 2027, according to Ledger Insights. The outlet noted that Stellar becomes the second public blockchain connected to the service after Canton.

DTCC's roadmap also lists Circle's Arc for 2027, per the company. The timeline is not fixed and may change.

The multi-chain approach reflects DTCC's stated aim of widening access to tokenized assets while keeping the same safeguards participants have at DTC today. DTC currently custodies assets valued at over $114 trillion, DTCC said. The $30 trillion figure cited for assets available to tokenize is a subset of that total.

Sources

DTCC: Tokenization service authorized under SEC no-action letter
Ledger Insights: DTC tokenization service to add Stellar
Crypto.news: July 15 DTCC tokenized transactions

Stellar, a blockchain network focused on facilitating cross-border payments and asset tokenization, has become a leading platform for tokenized real-world assets. The total reported value of tokenized assets on Stellar has reached approximately $3.5 billion. Despite this growth, XRP maintains a market capitalization almost 13 times greater than Stellar’s native XLM token, underlining a persistent imbalance between tokenization adoption and crypto valuations.

Stellar’s rising tokenization volumesAs of October 13, market data from CoinCodex showed XRP’s market capitalization at around $84.65 billion, while XLM trailed significantly at about $6.67 billion. This 12.7-fold difference persists even as Stellar’s institutional tokenization offerings continue to expand.

Recent estimates place the value of tokenized assets on Stellar near $3.5 billion, and, depending on the reporting methodology, this figure can be even higher—up to $4 billion according to Stellar’s own records in early September. Comparatively, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is estimated to host approximately $2.5 billion in tokenized real-world and financial assets under one broad reporting standard. However, specific rankings may vary based on whether they include certain stablecoins or financial products.

Stellar’s asset tokenization growth is largely supported by institutional products such as Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund and other financial instruments. The BENJI fund, tokenized and issued on Stellar, held about $605 million as of October 6. Another project, Spiko, accounts for $1.7 billion through tokenized money-market products.

These assets are structured as investment products, granting investors digital shares backed by underlying securities such as government bonds or money-market funds. Blockchain technology powers the issuance, recordkeeping, and settlement of these tokenized shares, delivering efficiency gains for institutional investors and fund managers.

Mini dictionary: Franklin Templeton is a global asset management firm that has issued tokenized money-market funds on blockchain platforms such as Stellar, allowing for digital shares in regulated investment products.

Tokenization versus native token valuationThe growth of tokenized assets does not necessarily translate into increased demand for a blockchain’s native cryptocurrency. When institutions invest in tokenized Treasury funds on Stellar, their money is allocated directly into underlying traditional assets, such as US Treasury securities. While the process requires a minimal amount of XLM for transaction fees and account reserves, these costs are relatively low and do not result in major demand for XLM itself.

A similar dynamic is present on the XRP Ledger. Even as institutional usage and tokenization of securities or stablecoins has increased, these activities do not automatically require counterparties to accumulate large holdings of XRP. Most institutional flows are directed toward the underlying assets, bypassing the need for substantial native coin exposure.

During the past year, Treasury tokenization volumes on the XRP Ledger grew significantly, rising from $50 million to approximately $418.5 million. However, this notable growth in tokenized assets has only a limited direct impact on XRP’s price, since institutional demand is insulated from speculative or retail-driven trading of the token.

XRP’s unique demand sourcesUnlike Stellar’s tokenized products, some institutional vehicles specifically aim to give investors direct exposure to XRP as an asset. For example, Evernorth recently secured a Nasdaq listing for a public treasury product holding 473 million XRP. Furthermore, U.S.-listed spot XRP ETFs increasingly provide additional channels for institutional or retail investors to gain direct exposure to the cryptocurrency.

These investment products differ fundamentally from tokenized Treasury funds or money-market products because their value proposition centers on XRP itself, rather than stablecoins or external securities. As a result, they contribute to market demand for XRP more directly than the tokenization models adopted by Stellar partners.

MetricStellar (XLM)XRP Ledger (XRP)Market capitalization$6.67 billion$84.65 billionTokenized assets value$3.5–$4 billion~$2.5 billionMain tokenization productsMoney market, Treasury fundsTreasury, ETFs, public treasury XRP holdingsXRP’s valuation remains significantly higher than Stellar’s XLM, despite the fact that Stellar now leads in total value of tokenized real-world assets. The disconnect between native token prices and blockchain adoption continues as both networks pursue different strategies to attract institutional flows.

Financial institutions and corporations continue to face costly and slow international payment systems. Global policymakers have now established concrete targets and deadlines to accelerate improvements in cross-border transfers.

G20 steps up commitment to cross-border payment reformsA participant in a SibosTV panel highlighted ongoing challenges in cross-border payments, including high transaction costs, limited access, sluggish processing, and a lack of transparency. She emphasized that pinpointing root causes has been key to developing solutions.

She indicated that G20 involvement has strengthened political support and driven progress among institutions working to modernize international payment systems. The G20, a group representing major economies worldwide, is leading initiatives to set measurable improvement goals for the financial industry.

“Sending money between countries is still too slow. The issues being discussed are problems that have persisted for years in cross-border payments,” wrote analyst X Finance Bull, pointing to the relevance of Ripple and Stellar networks.

FSB establishes deadlines to lower costs and speed up transfersThe Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international organization overseeing global financial systems, has set milestone deadlines for cross-border payment reform. By the end of 2027, at least 75% of international payments must reach recipients in under one hour. In addition, the average retail payment cost should drop to at most 1% by the same year.

By 2030, the FSB targets a further reduction in remittance expenses, expecting the average global cost to send a $200 remittance to fall to 3% or less. These benchmarks require banks and payment firms to expedite improvements in speed, affordability, and accessibility.

ObjectiveTargetDeadline75% of cross-border payments delivered within 1 hourDeadlineEnd of 2027Average retail payment cost ≤ 1%DeadlineEnd of 2027Remittance cost for $200 ≤ 3%TargetBy 2030XRP Ledger and Stellar as established solutions for global paymentsAnalyst X Finance Bull has linked these international goals to the current capabilities of XRP Ledger and the Stellar network. Both networks support rapid and low-cost asset transfers, making them suitable for addressing inefficiencies in cross-border payments. Several companies are already leveraging these technologies for instant settlement and remittance.

Ripple, a US-based blockchain firm specializing in enterprise payments, and Bitso, a major crypto exchange in Latin America, have expanded their partnership for stablecoin settlements across the US-Mexico payment corridor. Ripple’s Bitso case study highlights the use of XRP as a settlement asset in cross-border flows.

In South Korea, Jeonbuk Bank pioneered the deployment of Ripple Payments for outbound remittances. Meanwhile, Ripple has secured regulatory approvals in countries such as the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and Australia.

Stellar, an open-source payments network, has expanded its cross-border presence with projects like MoneyGram Ramps, which links USDC stablecoin transfers on Stellar to cash-out points in over 170 countries. Financial platform BVNK integrated Stellar into its payments platform in September 2026 and reported an annualized processing volume of $39 billion.

Mini dictionary: Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system to ensure stability and coordination across jurisdictions.

Liquidity and adoption rates remain crucial for successX Finance Bull observed that as payment platforms expand into more global corridors, access to liquidity will become increasingly vital to efficiently facilitate transactions across currencies. This demand is expected to create additional opportunities for digital assets that serve as bridges between payment systems.

X Finance Bull noted, increased adoption and transaction levels in XRP and XLM networks may lead to greater liquidity requirements, but asset performance will depend on real usage and market demand, not volume alone.

In particular, Stellar’s path payments feature allows senders to pay in one currency while recipients get another, with seamless conversion handled by the network. With the proliferation of stablecoins and tokenized assets, this interoperability could significantly improve user experience and drive growth in cross-border payments.

The G20’s reform agenda will run through at least 2030. The extent to which XRP Ledger and Stellar can attract institutional partners and foster payment-related liquidity will determine their impact on making global payments faster, more affordable, and broadly accessible.

@Pwc_de, working alongside implementation partner @Tokenforge and debt management firm EOS Group, has deployed a blockchain-based settlement system on @StellarOrg that compresses a month-long securitization payout process into a single day.

From 30 Days to 24 Hours Securitizations bundle pools of receivables, such as loans, leasing contracts, or mortgages, into a special purpose vehicle that then issues debt securities to investors. , a process that has traditionally relied on manual spreadsheet reconciliations through multiple intermediaries.

MiCA-Compliant Stablecoin at the Core Payments within the system are denominated in @AllUnityStable's EURAU stablecoin.

The joint venture behind the stablecoin brings together

The deployment represents a concrete example of institutional blockchain adoption in European structured finance, with compliance built in from the ground up rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

Sources:
AllUnity: BaFin EMI License Announcement
PwC: Blockchain Services and Stellar Development Foundation Partnership
Coinfomania: EOS Group Launches One-Day Securitization Payouts via Stellar

Stellar Climbs the RWA RankingsAccording to data from the @RWAFoundation_, @StellarOrg now hosts roughly $3.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets, placing it third among all public blockchains. Only @Ethereum and @BNBChain sit ahead of it. The figure puts Stellar's RWA ecosystem comfortably clear of @Ripple's $XRP Ledger at $2.5 billion, @Solana at $3 billion, and @Avax at $1.7 billion.

The ranking reflects a remarkable turnaround. That pace of expansion far outstripped the broader market:

Who Is Driving the GrowthThe gains are concentrated among a handful of large institutional issuers.

Stellar also holds a distinctive lead in one niche. That pool includes emerging-market sovereign instruments such as Mexican government bonds and Brazilian debt.

Institutional momentum shows little sign of slowing. With that integration on the horizon, Stellar's position in the RWA league table could strengthen further in the months ahead.

Sources:
Cointelegraph: Stellar RWA Value Approaches $4B Amid Tokenization Push
Crypto Briefing: Stellar's tokenized RWA market reaches the $4 billion line, up 360% this year
Coinpaprika: Stellar's Tokenized RWA Market Quadruples to Nearly $4 Billion

17h05 ▪ 14 min read ▪ by La Rédaction C.

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Crypto rankings almost always sort by price or market cap. This one looks at neither. It counts what each project actually put into production between 1 July and 29 September 2026, with a date and an official source for every milestone. The result: Stellar finishes first, Qubic and Chainlink follow, and two of the market’s heavyweights, Ethereum and Bitcoin, do not even make the table.

In Brief Five projects selected after a review of the CoinGecko top 100 on 29 September, plus Qubic, a guest from outside the top 100 (about $66 million in market cap). Four criteria, nothing else: an upgrade activated on mainnet, a product launched, a named institution or regulator, a usage figure published by the project. Stellar ticks all four boxes with six dated milestones, including MoneyGram joining as a validator and $40 billion processed since January. Chainlink lands the largest institutional deal of the quarter: 17 banks and asset managers connected to Swift’s blockchain ledger. Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana and Hyperliquid are absent: nothing dated on their mainnet in the third quarter. How was this ranking built? By counting dated, sourced milestones, not promises. A milestone scores one point if it is dated, published by the project itself (blog, press release, GitHub repository) and happened between 1 July and 29 September 2026.

The starting point is the CoinGecko top 100 as read on 29 September. The approach extends the one used in our AI crypto comparison, which already refused to line up Qubic, TAO or Render by price alone.

Four categories were reviewed for each project.

Mainnet: the real version of the blockchain, where user funds actually move, as opposed to test networks. Only an upgrade that was voted and activated counts. Product: a service open to the public. A roadmap does not count. Institutions and regulators: a named partner, a licence obtained, a financial product listed on an exchange. Published figures: a usage number released by the project itself, such as transactions, accounts or volume. Projects are ranked first on the number of categories covered, then on the number of milestones. Ties are broken by the size of the counterparties. What does not count: price, undated announcements, testnets, rumours and forecasts.

RankProject (CoinGecko market cap, 29/09)MainnetProductInstitutionsPublished figuresDated milestones1Stellar (XLM), $7.8BYesYesYesYes62Qubic (QUBIC), $66M, outside top 100YesYesNoYes63Chainlink (LINK), $10.9BNoYesYesYes54Injective (INJ), $0.77BUnconfirmedYesYesYes55Ondo (ONDO), $2.5BNoYesYesNo6Market caps rounded, read on CoinGecko on 29 September 2026. Just behind, with two categories each: TRON, Algorand, Zcash, Avalanche, XRP (see below). Why does Stellar finish first? Because it is the only network in the panel to tick all four boxes with dates. One upgrade, two products, three named partners and one published activity figure, all in twelve weeks.

On 8 July, validators activated Protocol 27, nicknamed “Zipper”. Validators are the computers that confirm transactions. The upgrade lets an account delegate its signature check to another address, which simplifies multi-signer wallets (Stellar software versions).

On 16 July, MoneyGram, Figure Markets and Range became Tier 1 validators (press release, 16 July).

The day before, Tradable had committed to tokenize up to $1 billion of private credit on the network (press release, 15 July). Tokenizing means representing a traditional asset as a token on a blockchain.

On 2 September, USDT0, the multi-chain version of Tether’s stablecoin, went live on Stellar. The same release puts the value processed by the network since January at $40 billion (press release, 2 September).

On 22 September, payments infrastructure provider BVNK integrated the network (press release, 22 September).

Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, on 2 September:

Stellar has been trusted to power cross-border payments for more than a decade and the addition of USDT0 to the Stellar ecosystem strengthens the network’s industry-leading payments stack.

What is missing: no active-user figure in any of these releases, and the stablecoin clearing prototype linked to the Bank of England’s settlement system, announced on 3 September, remains a prototype.

Qubic: what is a project outside the top 100 doing here? On the grid, it matches the big names. On market cap, it is nowhere near them. Six dated milestones in one quarter, no named institution, and a $66 million market cap, one hundred times smaller than Stellar.

Qubic has its miners work on useful computations, in practice training neural networks, instead of disposable ones. The project calls this useful proof of work, which we detailed in Qubic: turning every CPU cycle into real-world value.

On 29 July, Outsourced Computing went live on mainnet: third parties can now buy the miners’ computing power. On 4 August, the AIO developer kit was released publicly.

On 19 August, at epoch 227, token issuance was cut in half, an event known as a halving (Qubic recap of the 6 August meeting, published 13 August).

At epoch 228, in late August, Ant Colony mining was activated. Instead of each starting from scratch, miners extend results published by others. Each published result requires a 1 million QU deposit, and the 676 best miners are rewarded every week (Qubic blog post, 4 September).

On 22 September, the project reported a score of 0.38 for its Neuraxon model on ARC-AGI-3, a reasoning benchmark for artificial intelligence, up from 0.13 at the start, achieved on standard CPUs with no graphics card. The same recap reports a live cross-chain oracle and AEON Pay coverage at more than 20 million merchants in six countries (Qubic recap, 22 September).

The limits are clear. The ARC-AGI-3 score is self-reported by Qubic, not taken from a third-party leaderboard. 

The Alchemy Pay purchase campaign converted $12,613 from 38 buyers between 29 July and 28 August, a modest figure the project publishes itself.

The legal entity needed for its MiCA file, the European crypto-asset regulation, is “being registered”. No bank, no regulator, no exchange named this quarter. Hence the empty “Institutions” box, and second place rather than first.

Chainlink: the quarter of the institutions Five milestones in six weeks, every one with a named counterparty. A ranking weighted by partner size would put Chainlink on top. That is not the choice made here, and we say so.

Chainlink is a network of oracles: it feeds smart contracts with real-world data, such as a price or a bank reserve.

On 18 August, the State of Wyoming migrated its FRNT stablecoin to CCIP, Chainlink’s protocol for moving assets between blockchains, across eight networks (press release, 18 August). On 2 September, the same state adopted Chainlink Proof of Reserve (press release, 2 September).

On 24 August, Coinbase chose Chainlink price feeds for its tokenized stocks on Base (press release, 24 August).

On 28 September, CCIP 2.0 launched, with ANZ, Fidelity International, Sygnum and SBI Digital Markets among the named users, and $84 billion of cross-chain value secured according to the project (press release, 28 September).

The heaviest milestone came the same day: 17 financial institutions connected, in a pilot, to Swift‘s blockchain ledger through Chainlink’s runtime environment (Chainlink press release). We covered the starting point of that relationship in Chainlink enables tokenized asset transactions via Swift integration.

Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, in that release:

I’m very excited about the Swift ledger and what it will mean for tokenized deposits, as well as where global payments goes next.

One nuance to keep: this is a pilot, not a production rollout, and the oracle network itself saw no dated upgrade this quarter.

Injective: shipping inside a regulated frame An SEC registration, $1 billion of tokenized mortgage records, and INJ on Solana. Three categories covered, a fourth possible but unverified.

On 19 August, Injective Institutional Services was registered as a transfer agent with the SEC, the US securities regulator. A transfer agent keeps the official register of who holds a security (Injective blog post, 19 August).

On 4 September, Pineapple Financial tokenized more than $1 billion of mortgage records on the network (blog post, 4 September).

On 17 September, the INJ token became available on Solana (blog post, 17 September). On 22 September, Injective opened stablecoin payments at thousands of merchants through Bitrefill (blog post, 22 September).

What is not counted: two mainnet upgrades, IIP-677 in late July and Meridian on 24 September, relayed by exchanges but not found on Injective’s blog or governance page as of 29 September. If they are confirmed, Injective covers four categories and moves ahead of Qubic and Chainlink.

Ondo: tokenized stocks move from pilot to regulated framework Six milestones, including three US authorisations, but no network upgrade of its own and no usage figure. That is what keeps it in fifth place despite sharing the highest milestone count in the panel with Stellar and Qubic.

Ondo tokenizes US financial assets. On 15 July, it launched the first tokenized stocks backed by entitlements held at the DTC, the US central securities depository (Ondo blog post, 15 July).

On 23 July, its subsidiary Oasis Pro Markets obtained FINRA authorisations, the US broker-dealer regulator, to offer tokenized stocks and funds to US investors (blog post, 23 July).

On 16 September, it became the first tokenization platform to join Fund/SERV, the DTCC system that handles 85% of US fund transactions (blog post, 16 September).

Talia Klein, Managing Director at DTCC, in that post:

Interoperability between traditional infrastructure and digital asset ecosystems will be critical to achieving scale and broad market adoption.

Add the SBI partnership in Japan on 16 July, USDY on BNB Chain on 4 August and Ondo Stocks on NEAR on 22 September (blog post, 22 September). None of these posts gives a volume, a holder count or assets under management: the “Published figures” box stays empty.

Just behind: TRON, Algorand, Zcash, Avalanche, XRP Five projects with two categories each, including the fifth-largest by market cap. They fall outside the top 5 on the grid, not on importance.

TRON changed nothing dated on its protocol, but the first spot staked TRX ETF listed on Cboe on 9 September, and the project published $30 trillion in cumulative volume and 405 million accounts on 24 September (press release, 24 September). The previous step is in TRON breaks records: 400 million accounts.

Algorand did the opposite: protocol, no partners. Post-quantum accounts, built to resist future quantum computers, have been live since 20 August, with 1.24 million transactions in nineteen days, and the August report counts 677,000 active wallets (August report).

Zcash responded to a flaw discovered in May: the Ironwood upgrade on 28 July closed the old shielded pool and opened a new one (official NU6.3 page), then Grayscale’s Zcash ETF listed on NYSE Arca on 25 August. Context in Grayscale launches the first Zcash ETF listed in the United States.

Avalanche has only two milestones, but heavy ones: the Helicon upgrade on 22 September, six proposals activated at once (v1.15.0 on GitHub), and the Goldman Sachs FTIXX money market fund made accessible through Lynq, a settlement network built on a private Avalanche chain (tZERO press release, 28 September).

XRP: Ripple obtained its full CASP licence under MiCA on 6 July, valid in thirty countries (Ripple press release), and launched Ripple Mint on 23 July. On the XRPL side, versions 3.3.0 and 3.4.0 were released, but no major amendment activation is confirmed as of 29 September: released software is not activated software.

Who is missing, and why? The absentees are not stalled projects. Their quarter played out on test networks.

Ethereum activated Fusaka on 3 December 2025. Since then, everything has happened on testnets: Glamsterdam is scheduled on Sepolia for 6 October and the mainnet date is “not decided” (Ethereum announcement, 17 September).

Bitcoin: Core 31.0 shipped on 19 April, nothing dated since (31.0 release notes). Solana did activate Transaction V1 on 9 September, but Alpenglow slipped to October (Solana changelog, 18 September): one category only. Hyperliquid has only dated testnets.

Cardano completed its van Rossem hard fork on 18 July, the first ratified entirely by an on-chain vote (Intersect post): one category, one milestone.

What this ranking does not tell you Counting is not weighing. Avalanche sits outside the top 5 with two milestones, each of which outweighs half the table. Chainlink would be first if ranked by counterparty size. The grid is deliberately simple so it can be verified; it is not fair in every case.

The figures are self-reported. Chainlink’s $84 billion, Stellar’s $40 billion, Qubic’s 0.38 are published by the projects. None has been audited by a third party as far as we know. And a quarter is a snapshot: Kaspa activated Toccata on 30 June, one day too early to make it here.

Finally, there is no link to price. Algorand, outside the top 5, saw ALGO gain 72% in six weeks. Stellar, first, publishes no figure of that kind. Shipping and rising are two different things, and this article makes no forecast.

On the current market dynamics, see Altcoins outperform Bitcoin, but this is not altseason yet. 

FAQ Does a project outside the top 100 belong in a crypto top 5? Yes, provided the same grid is applied and its market cap is shown. Qubic weighs about $66 million, one hundred times less than Stellar, and it is a Cointribune partner. Both facts are in the table. Excluding it on market cap alone would amount to ranking by price, which this article refuses to do.

Where can I check each milestone myself? Every date in this article links to the project’s blog, press release or GitHub repository. For software versions, the repository’s “releases” page is the reference. For ETFs, the issuer’s press release and the listing exchange’s page.

Why don't testnets count? Because a testnet can slip with no consequence for users. Alpenglow at Solana and Glamsterdam at Ethereum were both pushed back this quarter. Only mainnet commits user funds, so only mainnet counts.

Will this ranking be updated? Yes, at the end of each quarter, with the same grid. The next dated deadlines: Glamsterdam on Sepolia on 6 October, Alpenglow targeted for October by Solana, and Zcash’s NU7 upgrade targeted for 5 November according to developers, a date not confirmed by the Foundation.

On 6 October, Ethereum will activate Glamsterdam on Sepolia. If mainnet follows before 31 December, the fourth-quarter table will have a new leader. If not, the question will be the same as today: who ships, and who announces?

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As Stellar continues to prove itself as a fast-growing crypto project, challenging XRP even across the DeFi ecosystem, the network has just reached a new milestone.

With the network seeing increased participation among users, it has subsequently recorded notable growth across its DeFi applications, pushing it to reach a new record in its total value locked as of October 2.

Stellar TVL hits all-time highPer the latest data from DeFiLlama, Stellar has seen its DeFi TVL surge to nearly $273 million, marking the highest level it has ever reached since it launched.

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This new record has drawn attention from market participants as it has come just one week after it initially climbed to about $265 million.

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This suggests that Stellar has continued to witness steady growth of capital deployed across protocols based on its network, driving further growth in its native token, XLM.

In addition to its record TVL growth, the network has also recorded substantial increases in its onchain activity. Stellar now boasts about $934.54 million in stablecoin market capitalization and about $2.82 billion in active real-world asset (RWA) assets under management.

Stellar active addresses near 100,000 milestone Following the surge in its DeFi performance, user participation in the Stellar network has also continued to increase, bringing the network closer to a major milestone in its user activity.

While Stellar also saw its 24-hour DEX volume reach $3.38 million, the network is seeing active participation from users, as its active addresses have now reached 94,972.

Stellar’s tokenized real-world asset market has grown into something institutions take seriously. As of August 29, 2026, tokenized RWAs on the network totaled approximately $3.996 billion.

That is up 360% from $868.8 million at the end of 2025. The figure briefly crossed $4 billion around August 3, so the network has already visited the four-comma neighborhood once this year.

XLM, Stellar’s native asset, has been trading around $0.18 through August. The network keeps adding assets, and the token has mostly stayed put.

Who is filling the vault On Stellar, institutional issuers drove the growth. The asset mix covers US Treasuries, private and public credit, money market funds, and non-US sovereign debt.

Spiko leads the pack with approximately $1.55 billion in tokenized assets. That single issuer accounts for well over a third of the network’s RWA total.

The next tier is unusually tight:

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Realiz: $559 million

Tradable: $548 million

Franklin Templeton’s BENJI ecosystem: $546 million

Ondo: $535 million

Together, those five issuers make up the vast majority of the market. Four of them sit within about $25 million of each other.

The emerging-market debt niche Stellar’s most distinctive lane is tokenized non-US government debt. By August 20, 2026, the network held roughly $490 million in this category, which puts it ahead of every other public blockchain.

Much of that comes through Etherfuse, which brings assets like Mexican CETES and Brazilian bonds on-chain. CETES are short-term Mexican government securities.

The Stellar Development Foundation has emphasized robustness and regulatory alignment as core to its framework. The network lets institutions choose and configure privacy solutions alongside compliance controls.

Background: from $868.8 million to the DTCC Stellar closed 2025 with $868.8 million in tokenized RWAs. Eight months later, it is closing in on five times that base.

The DTCC plans to connect its tokenization service to Stellar, with DTC-custodied assets set to become available in the first half of 2027.

What this means Concentration is the risk worth watching. Five issuers account for most of the market, and Spiko alone holds approximately $1.55 billion. If one large issuer migrated assets elsewhere or wound down a product, the network’s headline number could fall quickly.

For XLM holders, the token trading near $0.18 while network RWAs climb 360% points to a disconnect between on-chain activity and market sentiment toward the asset itself. Tokenized Treasuries and money market funds do not require their holders to buy and hold large amounts of the native token.

The things to track from here are fairly concrete. Watch whether the total holds above $4 billion rather than briefly touching it. Watch whether the non-US sovereign debt lead widens beyond roughly $490 million. And watch whether the DTCC connection arrives in the first half of 2027 as planned.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The State Street Galaxy Onchain Liquidity Sweep Fund (SWEEP), a tokenized private liquidity fund from State Street Investment Management and Galaxy, is now live on the Stellar network as an onchain cash management solution for eligible investors, according to a Tuesday announcement.

State Street and Galaxy launched SWEEP in May 2026 on Solana. The private vehicle is available to Qualified Purchasers and is designed to connect traditional cash management with onchain markets.

The fund supports 24/7 subscriptions and redemptions in stablecoins like PayPal’s PYUSD or Circle’s USDC, subject to their availability in the portfolio. USD transactions are also supported through Fedwire on business days, giving institutions an alternative to traditional fiat on-ramps when accessing tokenized cash products.

On Stellar, SWEEP is issued through a smart contract that combines programmable asset functionality with the network’s issuer controls for authorization, freezing and clawbacks. The structure is designed to allow cash management outside traditional banking hours and settlement windows.

Galaxy provides tokenization and distribution, while Anchorage handles digital asset custody, Chainlink supports fund pricing and reserve data, NAV Consulting serves as transfer agent and State Street Bank and Trust Company holds the fund’s securities. 

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

TLDR: BVNK integrated Stellar for cross-border payments across more than 130 global business markets. USDT0 now runs on Stellar, letting firms move dollars without holding or using XLM directly. U.S. Bank piloted its USBDC stablecoin on Stellar for North American to European settlement. Stellar’s growth may not guarantee higher XLM demand, since stablecoins can bypass the token. XLM sits at the center of a growing debate as Stellar expands beyond simple payments. Recent integrations from BVNK, U.S. Bank, and the stablecoin USDT0 show Stellar moving toward institutional settlement and tokenization.

Yet these developments raise a separate question. Does network growth on Stellar translate into stronger demand for XLM itself, or can the blockchain succeed while its native token plays a smaller role?

Stellar Expands Into Payment Infrastructure Stellar has long focused on fast, low-cost payments rather than general-purpose smart contracts. That focus is now shifting toward institutional use cases.

On September 22, 2026, BVNK announced it would integrate Stellar into its stablecoin payments platform, according to analysis shared by crypto commentator @SylvianGuibal on X. Business customers across more than 130 markets can now use Stellar for cross-border payments, merchant payouts, and treasury transfers.

🚨 Stellar Is Becoming Payment Infrastructure. But What Does That Really Mean for stellar:native?

For years, Stellar has been presented as a blockchain designed for fast, low-cost payments.

Today, that description may be becoming too simplistic.

Stellar is increasingly… pic.twitter.com/IzXS9aazdp

— Stellar XLM Holder (@SylvianGuibal) September 27, 2026

Separately, USDT0 has gone live on Stellar, connecting the network to unified USDT liquidity across multiple blockchains. This allows businesses to move digital dollars internationally without needing to hold XLM directly.

U.S. Bank has also piloted its own stablecoin, USBDC, using Stellar for cross-border settlement between its North American and European entities.

These moves point toward Stellar positioning itself as infrastructure for tokenized finance rather than a network built around XLM transactions alone. Institutions appear focused on stablecoin settlement speed and cost, not on the token that secures the underlying network.

Stablecoins Raise Questions About XLM Demand Growing stablecoin activity on Stellar does not automatically translate into higher demand for XLM. A company moving funds through Stellar may rely entirely on stablecoins like USDC or USDT0 for settlement. The transaction value stays denominated in digital dollars rather than XLM.

This distinction separates network utility from token value capture. Stellar can become more useful as infrastructure grows, while XLM’s direct role stays limited to fees and account requirements.

XLM remains necessary for network operations, since it covers transaction costs and supports account functions on Stellar.

However, whether expanding stablecoin volume creates proportional demand for XLM remains unclear. Analysts tracking the network suggest this gap between infrastructure growth and token demand could shape XLM’s trajectory going forward.

Possible Scenarios for XLM’s Future Role Several outcomes remain possible for XLM as Stellar’s institutional adoption continues. One scenario involves Stellar becoming a major stablecoin settlement rail while XLM demand stays relatively flat. Transaction volume could rise without a matching increase in token usage.

A second scenario involves broader network growth increasing XLM usage for fees, reserves, and liquidity functions. More accounts and applications on Stellar could create more consistent, direct demand for the token over time.

A third possibility involves XLM taking on a larger role as a liquidity bridge between currencies and stablecoins. Tracking payment volume, stablecoin supply, and institutional adoption alongside XLM utilization may offer clearer signals than price movement alone.

Mastercard-owned BVNK has integrated Stellar into its stablecoin payments infrastructure, allowing businesses to move stablecoins over the network through a single API.

“By integrating Stellar’s established payment network, we are giving our customers another efficient, low-cost route to move money globally through a single platform and API. Businesses can choose the networks and assets that best fit their needs, without having to build and maintain the infrastructure to connect to each one themselves,” Kim Mescal Julien, Head of Partnerships at BVNK, said in a statement.

Mastercard completed its purchase of BVNK last month, after announcing a deal worth up to $1.8 billion. Its stablecoin infrastructure has been integrated into Mastercard’s payments business to bridge fiat payment rails and onchain assets, supporting applications such as cross-border B2B payments, payouts, settlement and treasury management.

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The integration adds another blockchain rail for high-volume cross-border payments, merchant payouts and treasury disbursements.

Julien said global payments are moving toward a multi-chain, multi-asset model, while businesses should not need to manage the technical burden of connecting with dozens of individual blockchains.

Stellar, a blockchain focused on payments and digital asset transfers, processed $55.6 billion in payment volume in 2025. BVNK said it has processed about $39 billion in annualized volume, with its platform designed to abstract the technical complexity of connecting businesses to individual blockchain networks.

“Businesses moving money at scale need to know it works every time, in every corridor. Stellar has spent a decade building a payments network that financial institutions and regulated enterprises depend on for cross-border transfers, payouts, and stablecoin settlement,” Denelle Dixon, CEO & Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation stated.

The Stellar integration is live for all BVNK enterprise customers across more than 130 countries. BVNK said customers will be able to access additional Stellar-native assets as the company adds support for them without requiring separate technical integrations.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Regulated Digital Euros Enter the Workplace@Zebec_HQ and @AllUnityStable have launched a pilot program that lets employers pay staff benefit allowances in $EURAU, a regulated euro stablecoin, via the Stellar network. The companies describe it as Europe's first employee-benefits program of its kind built on regulated digital currency.

Under the setup, German tax law is central to the proposition: benefit allowances paid to employees can be exempt from tax up to a set monthly limit, making stablecoin-denominated perks a practical option for employers. @Zebec_HQ has noted in its blog that the precise tax treatment depends on how each employer structures the program.

What Is EURAU?

For now, @Zebec_HQ has not named the employers participating in the pilot and has not shared user numbers, leaving the scale of the program unclear.

Sources:
AllUnity: EURAU-Powered Employee Benefits and Enterprise Payments on Stellar
Business Wire: AllUnity and Zebec Deploy EURAU-Powered Solutions on Stellar
Ledger Insights: Deutsche Bank-linked stablecoin EURAU goes live

TLDR MoneyGram launched a virtual stablecoin card in Colombia through partners Rain, Crossmint and Stellar. Customers can hold dollar-linked balances, spend through Visa, or collect local cash at MoneyGram locations. A physical version of the card is planned for late 2026, adding ATM withdrawals. The company has not named which stablecoin backs the card or disclosed fees. Debit cards remain the cheapest way to receive remittances, according to World Bank data. MoneyGram has launched a new stablecoin-backed card in Colombia. The virtual card is available now through the company’s mobile app.

Customers who qualify can hold a stable-dollar balance. They can spend it through Visa’s merchant network or collect local cash at a MoneyGram location.

The card can be added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. This allows for tap-to-pay and online checkout wherever Visa is accepted.

Colombia is the first market for the product. MoneyGram plans to add more countries in the coming months.

How the card works The card was built with help from three infrastructure partners. Rain supplies the card technology that connects stablecoin balances to the Visa network.

Crossmint provides the wallet system used inside the MoneyGram app. Stellar is the blockchain network that processes the underlying transactions.

Customers who need physical cash can send money to themselves inside the app. They can then pick it up at a nearby MoneyGram location.

The current virtual card does not support direct ATM withdrawals. MoneyGram said a physical card is planned for late 2026 to add that feature.

MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo said the card gives customers more control over their money in one place. He described it as combining a stable-dollar balance with spending and cash access.

What details are still unknown MoneyGram has not said which stablecoin backs the balances on the card. It also has not shared reserve details or redemption terms.

The company has not released pricing, fees or foreign-exchange charges for the Colombian card. A rollout schedule for future markets has also not been shared.

MoneyGram reports more than 60 million active customers. It operates in over 200 countries and territories with close to 500,000 retail locations, according to company figures.

This is not MoneyGram’s first stablecoin project. The company introduced its own dollar-linked token, called MGUSD, on Stellar in June 2026 for treasury and settlement use.

In August, MoneyGram expanded its Ramps service to Solana, letting supported wallets move funds through its cash network. Western Union launched a similar Visa stablecoin card with Rain the same month.

World Bank data from the third quarter of 2025 found debit cards were the cheapest way to receive a remittance, costing 3.61% on average. That compares with a 6.36% global average across all payout methods.

MoneyGram has not confirmed a launch date for the physical card beyond “late 2026.” Pricing and additional markets for the virtual card have not yet been announced.

US Bank has completed a live pilot of its proprietary USBDC stablecoin, executing real-time cross-border payments between its North American and European divisions on the Stellar blockchain. The test, carried out on September 9, makes US Bank one of the first major American financial institutions to run a bank-issued, dollar-backed stablecoin on a public blockchain in a live operational setting.

What the pilot actually tested The USBDC pilot tested the full lifecycle of its stablecoin: minting, payment execution, redemption, freezing, and clawback functionality. The pilot was designed to integrate seamlessly with the bank’s existing systems for risk management, compliance, finance, and operations.

The pilot ran on Stellar, a blockchain that has carved out a niche in payments and remittances. US Bank previously collaborated with the Stellar Development Foundation and PwC on stablecoin testing back in November 2025, so this pilot represents a continuation of that relationship rather than a fresh experiment.

CEO Gunjan Kedia emphasized that the pilot plays an essential role in accelerating global cash management. Jamie Walker, Head of Digital Assets and Money Movement, highlighted the focus on addressing real client challenges with advanced bank-grade controls.

The path that led here The groundwork started in October 2025, when the bank created a dedicated Digital Assets and Money Movement organization aimed at enhancing its involvement in stablecoin issuance, digital asset custody, and tokenization of money. By late 2025, US Bank was already custodying reserves for Anchorage Digital Bank’s stablecoins. The November 2025 collaboration with the Stellar Development Foundation and PwC followed, laying the technical foundation for what became the September 2026 live pilot.

US Bank (officially US Bancorp) is the fifth-largest banking institution in the United States.

Why this matters beyond one pilot The USBDC pilot outlines a roadmap that extends well beyond a single cross-border transfer. US Bank has identified several future applications for its stablecoin: 24/7 payments, liquidity management, cross-border treasury operations, and enhanced collateral mobility.

US Bank’s decision to issue a stablecoin on a public blockchain, rather than a private or permissioned ledger, sets a different precedent from efforts such as JPMorgan’s blockchain work through Kinexys (formerly Onyx). It signals that regulated institutions can operate on open infrastructure while maintaining the controls their regulators demand.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The XLM crypto price moved closer to $0.20 after gaining 1.45%, extending its recovery from an August low near $0.155.

Another potential source of liquidity for Stellar’s payment-centric network follows Tether’s USDT0 token launching on it earlier this week. Over the past few rallies the XLM price has struggled to break through its previous price records.

USDT0 expands Stellar’s stablecoin offering On September 2, the Stellar Development Foundation announced the arrival of USDT0.

People and businesses are able to use Tether’s USDT liquidity through Stellar, using USDT0, and potential use cases include international payments, transferring funds between financial applications and company settlements.

This means that instead of creating separate pools of tokens for every network supported by the asset, there is one common supply supported by USDT.

The move is set to increase the choice of digital dollars on Stellar’s payments platform, joining other USD-backed and euro-backed stablecoins already available on the system like UDSC and PYUSD.

Users do not have to hold XLM to send out payments; the network’s token is mostly used to cover transaction charges and maintain accounts. However, stablecoin usage would increase activity and make XLM popular amongst its peers.

XLM price approaches a familiar barrier XLM was swapping hands at $0.1903 at the time of this writing, having ranged between lows of $0.1854 during the trading session and climbed to $0.1964 at its highest. The total amount of trades of XLM has now totalled 87.09 million.

The price is now nearing $0.20 again, and this area stopped advances in July and again in the second half of August.

However, touching that level briefly may not be enough, since buyers will need to keep XLM above the level of $0.20 to suggest that a room for a potential rally is ahead.

Source: TradingView In that scenario $0.21 will be looked at next, then $0.22; again an area in the past that has brought sellers out.

If rejected from these levels, it means XLM could fall back down to around the $0.18 mark. It recently saw support from these regions; a rejection, however, means that it could potentially move into the trading regions last seen in August, which lie near $0.16. 

Buying interest has started to pick up, although it is still nowhere near the levels of the sharp rallies it printed earlier in the year. Although XLM is moving in the right direction, the recovery is holding back for its biggest push.

Final Summary XLM reached $0.1964 as buyers pushed the price towards the repeatedly tested $0.20 level. USDT0 has expanded Stellar’s stablecoin offering, although its effect on demand for XLM remains uncertain.

Stellar (XLM) is trading at $0.1922, up 4.4% over 24 hours, as the network holds its lead in tokenized non-US sovereign debt, a position it has maintained since February. According to data from RWA.xyz as of August 20, Stellar holds roughly $490 million in tokenized sovereign debt issued outside the US, more than any other blockchain.

Ethereum still leads in tokenized US Treasuries and in total real-world asset value across the market, which continues growing on every major chain. Stellar’s lead is confined to sovereign debt issued outside the US and denominated in currencies other than the dollar, a smaller category today but one tied to a much larger share of the world’s governments and businesses that don’t operate primarily in dollars.

Rapid Growth Over 18 Months

Real-world assets on Stellar, excluding stablecoins, have grown from roughly $500 million in early 2025 to $854.6 million by the end of last year, crossing $1 billion in January 2026, reaching $1.52 billion by the end of Q1 (a 91% quarterly jump), passing $2 billion in April, and topping $3 billion in June.

That’s roughly a threefold increase over the past year. Stellar now accounts for about 9% of all distributed RWA value across blockchains, placing it among the top four networks alongside Ethereum, BNB Chain and Solana, and the only one among them outside the Ethereum Virtual Machine ecosystem.

What’s Actually on the Network

The sovereign debt total is built from a range of live products. Etherfuse’s Stablebonds bring Mexican CETES and Brazilian Tesouro bonds onto Stellar. Spiko’s euro-denominated T-bill fund grew from roughly $520 million to $970 million over the past year, with most of that growth occurring on Stellar specifically. South Korean Treasury Bonds and a digital sovereign bond from the Marshall Islands round out a list of issuers spanning five continents.

Beyond sovereign debt, Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, the first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its official system of record, also runs on Stellar. Ondo’s USDY and WisdomTree’s WTGXX are live on the network as well. USDC’s market cap on Stellar grew about 15% quarter-over-quarter to more than $256 million in Q1 2026, and euro-denominated stablecoins have expanded.

Transaction activity backs up the balance sheet numbers. Stablecoin payment volume on Stellar reached $5.5 billion in Q1 2026, up 72% year-over-year, with transaction velocity up 75% over the same period. Institutional participation has broadened alongside the technical case, with U.S. Bank, Amundi, Société Générale, AllUnity, Malaysia’s Kenanga, and Singapore’s Marketnode, backed by SGX and Temasek, all engaging with the network.

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Stellar Development Foundation

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The world’s most widely used stablecoin just found a new home. USDT0, the infrastructure that brings Tether’s USDT to every network, is now live on the Stellar network, marking a significant milestone for one of the longest-running blockchains built for real-world payments and cross-border finance.

Beyond another asset listing, it’s a structural upgrade to liquidity on Stellar.

Instant access to global USDT liquidityWhether you are making cross-border payments, settling accounts, or powering an app on Stellar, USDT0 gives institutions and individuals the ability to move value onchain with immediate access to billions of dollars of liquidity. Built on LayerZero’s OFT interoperability standard, USDT0 maintains a single unified supply backed 1:1 by USDT. From day one, Stellar participants tap into the same global liquidity pool shared across LayerZero-connected blockchain ecosystems—no isolated pools, no wrapped tokens, no third-party tooling required. See it in action: move USDT0 to and from any supported chain in a few clicks.

Better liquidity, stronger DeFiWith USDT0 now available on Stellar, DeFi protocols can build around an asset with more than $180 billion in market capitalization. USDT0 can be used as collateral, borrowed against, traded, and put to work across yield opportunities. That creates more ways for existing USDT holders to put their capital to work on Stellar, expanding the potential pool of participants and capital to include markets where USDT is already a primary settlement asset. USDT0 on Stellar is available on SushiSwap with more DeFi integrations to come.

Competing where it countsUSDT has a global footprint, and is used widely in emergent, fast-growth markets across Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific—the very regions where Stellar has spent years building payments infrastructure. With USDT0 now on Stellar, users in these regions can now move the stablecoin they already trust on infrastructure purpose-built for it—sub-cent fees, five-second transaction finality, and on/off-ramp coverage across 170+ countries. This combination of asset and network is a natural fit for the way people in emerging markets actually use stablecoins.

Less friction for partners already on StellarFor exchanges, fintechs, enterprises and payment service providers already operating on Stellar, USDT0 extends what they can offer. Adding USDT0 requires minimal lift for anyone already running on Stellar rails—and for partners whose counterparties prefer USDT, it removes the swap costs and operational friction that come with other assets. The result is simpler treasury management, cleaner payment flows, and one less conversion standing between you and your end users. For exchanges, that means offering USDT0 deposits, transfers and withdrawals on rails that settle in seconds for fractions of a cent. For wallets and fintechs, it means giving users in USDT-dominant markets across Latin America, Africa, and Asia a way to send, receive, and hold the asset they already prefer, while enterprises and PSPs can settle with counterparties in USDT0 and manage USDC, EURC, and USDT0 in a single treasury integration on one network.

USDT0 on Stellar is available on:

KrakenFreighterLobstrMeruBitgetFireblocksBiLira KriptoKredeteRamp NetworkSushiSwapExodus (coming online soon)More wallets and exchanges will be available in the coming months.

A signal to the marketUSDT0’s arrival on Stellar sends a clear message to the broader ecosystem. Institutions, fintechs, and developers evaluating which networks to build on now have another compelling reason to choose Stellar: access to the most liquid stablecoin in the world, on a network with a decade of proven reliability in global payments.

The infrastructure is ready. The liquidity is live. The next chapter for Stellar starts now.

Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) are showing signs of recovery on Tuesday after rebounding slightly the previous day, following double-digit corrections last week. Moreover, XRP continues to attract Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) inflows and Stellar’s Real-World Assets (RWAs) ecosystem has surpassed $4 billion. These developments indicate growing institutional interest and could provide fresh fundamental support for a recovery in both altcoins.

XRP institutional demand shows signs of strengthInstitutional demand for XRP has remained strong. SoSoValue data showed spot ETFs recorded a $5.64 million inflow on Monday, marking 10 consecutive days of positive flows since August 18. Moreover, net weekly inflows last week exceeded $110 million, the highest weekly flows since early December 2025. If these inflows continue and intensify, XRP could support gains ahead.

Total XRP spot ETF net inflow daily chart. Source: SoSoValue

Total XRP spot ETF net inflow weekly chart. Source: SoSoValueXLM RWAs hit $4 billionStellar announced on its X account on Monday that Real-World Assets (RWAs) on its network have surpassed $4 billion. This highlights the rapid expansion of Stellar’s RWA ecosystem and supports a bullish long-term outlook for XLM.

XRP technical outlook: Key 200-day EMA holds strongXRP price trades at $1.37 on Tuesday, maintaining a bullish near-term bias as it remains above key Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs). The 200-day EMA at $1.35 underpins the advance together with the 100-day EMA at $1.21 and the 50-day EMA at $1.21, suggesting a constructive underlying trend despite the recent pullback from overbought RSI readings.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) has eased to 61 from earlier extreme levels. At the same time, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has slipped marginally negative, hinting at waning upside momentum rather than a clear trend reversal as long as price holds over the 200-day EMA.

On the topside, the next significant barrier is the horizontal resistance at $1.90, where fresh supply could emerge if the rally extends. 

On the downside, immediate support sits around the current consolidation area, backed by the 200-day EMA at $1.35, followed by the horizontal floor at $1.30. Deeper setbacks would expose the broader demand zone defined by the 100-day and 50-day EMAs clustered near $1.21, ahead of the more distant structural support at $1.00.

XRP/USDT daily chartXLM technical outlook: Near key resistance zoneXLM price trades at $0.1776 on Tuesday, capped by a dense cluster of EMAs just overhead, which keeps the near-term bias bearish. XLM price is marginally below the 50-day EMA at $0.1778, with the 100-day and 200-day EMAs higher at $0.1797 and $0.1890, respectively, suggesting rallies remain vulnerable while these levels hold as resistance.

The RSI hovers around 50, hinting at a loss of upside momentum, while the MACD has slipped back below the zero line, reinforcing the idea of a fading bullish phase and scope for further consolidation or downside.

On the downside, immediate support is seen at the nearby horizontal level at $0.1774, which forms a tight pivot zone around the current price, before a more distant structural floor emerges at $0.1420.

On the topside, initial resistance is given by the 50-day EMA at $0.1778, followed by the 100-day EMA at $0.1797 and the 200-day EMA at $0.1890; only a sustained break above this moving-average stack would ease bearish pressure and open the way for a more constructive recovery phase.

XLM/USDT daily chart(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Stellar’s tokenized real-world asset market has climbed from about $785 million in January to more than $3 billion in July, while only just over $2 million has entered Blend pools that accept RWAs.

Summary

Stellar’s RWA value increased almost fourfold during the first seven months of 2026. Four tokenized products account for hundreds of millions of dollars each on the network. Blend has $127 million in TVL, but its RWA-enabled pools hold only slightly more than $2 million. RedStone says round-the-clock pricing remains necessary before more RWAs can serve as DeFi collateral. Stellar’s RWA market has crossed $3 billion RedStone’s latest report has found that Stellar’s RWA market expanded almost fourfold between January and July, driven by tokenized money market funds, U.S. Treasury products and corporate credit.

Several individual products have reached values normally associated with established investment funds rather than early blockchain trials. The Amundi and Spiko Overnight Swap Fund, a French-regulated UCITS cash-management product, has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars in onchain value since going live on Stellar in March.

RedStone’s report identified Spiko’s tokenized U.S. Treasury bill fund as another major contributor. The product had reached about $536 million, while Ondo Finance’s USDY held more than $533 million on Stellar.

USDY is a yield-bearing asset supported by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits. Ondo expanded the product to Stellar in September 2025, after which its value on the network rose from slightly more than $1 million at the beginning of 2026 to over $533 million.

Corporate credit has added another large pool of tokenized value. VuMe Bond 2030, issued under Luxembourg securitization rules, launched on Stellar in February and has since reached approximately $500 million.

Franklin Templeton has maintained an earlier institutional presence through the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund. Launched on Stellar in 2021, the fund uses the BENJI token and invests primarily in U.S. government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements. RedStone placed the value tokenized on Stellar at about $460 million.

The concentration of several large products shows that Stellar has already attracted issuers capable of placing hundreds of millions of dollars on a public network. Yet issuance records how much value has been tokenized, not how much of it is being traded, supplied to lending markets, or used as collateral.

RWA use in Stellar DeFi remains limited Stellar’s decentralized finance market remains much smaller than its tokenized asset base. RedStone placed total DeFi value on the network at about $259 million when its report was prepared, compared with more than $3 billion in RWAs.

Blend, Stellar’s largest lending protocol, accounted for roughly $127 million of that DeFi total. Pools capable of accepting RWAs, however, held only slightly more than $2 million.

Templar Protocol provides another example of the limited use of tokenized assets in lending. Its Stellar application allows users to borrow against assets including deJAAA, deJTRSY, CETES, and USTRY, but the protocol had about $8.4 million in total value locked on the network, according to RedStone.

DeJAAA represents exposure to AAA-rated collateralized loan obligation tranches, while deJTRSY is tied to short-term U.S. Treasury securities. CETES tracks Mexican government Treasury certificates, and USTRY is backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bills.

Royal Fool, the pseudonymous co-founder and chief executive of Templar Protocol, said dependable pricing is required before a lending market can safely accept an RWA.

“Listing a real-world asset as collateral works best if we can price it reliably around the clock.”

According to the executive, SEP-40 feeds allow Templar to accept real-world collateral and support borrowing against it on Stellar. Lending protocols need current prices to calculate loan-to-value ratios and determine when a position no longer has enough collateral.

A tokenized security does not automatically become usable in DeFi simply because it exists on a blockchain. Trading venues need a defensible price before listing it, while lending protocols must keep valuing collateral even when the market for its underlying asset is closed.

Continuous pricing could bring more RWAs into DeFi Price discovery becomes harder when an onchain token represents an asset that does not trade continuously. Bitcoin, Ether, and other liquid cryptocurrencies change hands around the clock, allowing oracle providers to combine quotes from several active exchanges.

Traditional assets follow different schedules. U.S. stocks trade mainly during set market hours, while government debt products may only have reliable spot prices when their domestic markets are open.

Money market funds add another complication because their value depends on the securities held in their portfolios rather than on constant secondary-market trading. Fund administrators may also distribute net asset value data through systems that cannot send information directly to a smart contract.

Corporate debt requires additional inputs, including credit quality, maturity, settlement terms, and the structure of the security. According to RedStone, an oracle must account for such differences rather than applying the same method used to price a liquid crypto token.

Stellar’s SEP-40 Oracle Consumer Interface provides a common format through which Soroban smart contracts can request price information. Before the standard was introduced, each provider could use a separate interface, requiring developers to build a new adapter whenever they added another data source.

Under SEP-40, compatible providers follow the same set of functions for identifying supported assets, price precision, update intervals, and timestamps. Applications can retrieve the latest value, request historical records, and check whether a price has become stale.

RedStone joined Stellar in March and later adopted SEP-40. Materials provided with the report said the oracle provider now supports 55 price feeds covering U.S. Treasuries, sovereign debt, corporate credit, tokenized gold, and money market products.

Among the covered assets are Ondo’s USDY, Franklin Templeton’s BENJI and Matrixdock’s XAUm gold token. RedStone also supplies data for Centrifuge-linked Treasury and credit products, along with tokenized Mexican and Brazilian government debt issued by Etherfuse.

Martin Quensel, founder of Anemoy and co-founder of Centrifuge, said tokenization places regulated funds within reach of decentralized finance, while standardized pricing allows protocols to use them as collateral.

“Reliable, standardized pricing on Stellar by RedStone is what lets protocols actually use them as collateral.”

Stellar had previously added another data layer when it integrated Chainlink services in October 2025. The arrangement covered Data Feeds, Data Streams, and the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol for applications working with DeFi and tokenized assets.

DTCC brings a U.S. market catalyst for 2027 The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation plans to add tokenized versions of DTC-custodied assets to Stellar in the first half of 2027, extending the network’s RWA pipeline into U.S. market infrastructure.

As reported in May, the initial eligible assets are expected to include Russell 1000 shares, major index exchange-traded funds, U.S. Treasuries, and several classes of corporate and other bonds.

DTCC received a no-action letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2025. The relief allows it to test tokenized securities under specified conditions while maintaining existing investor protections, disclosures and control over ownership records.

The $114 trillion figure attached to the agreement represents assets held in custody by DTC, not the value that will move to Stellar. DTCC has not said that its entire custody base will be tokenized or transferred onto the network.

For U.S. investors, tokenization under DTCC’s system would keep the securities within established custody and regulatory structures. Eligible assets could receive blockchain-based representations while ownership records remain tied to the securities held at DTC.

DTCC has already begun testing tokenized public-market assets with major financial firms. In July, BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, the New York Stock Exchange, and almost 40 other institutions participated in a tokenization pilot involving stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries.

Microsoft and Circle shares, the Invesco QQQ Trust, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF and BlackRock’s iShares 0–3 Month Treasury Bond ETF were among the first assets included. JPMorgan also completed a conversion of QQQ shares into a tokenized representation during the pilot.

The active trial uses permissioned infrastructure, including Hyperledger Besu and Canton, while the separate Stellar deployment remains scheduled for 2027. DTCC said participants would test collateral transfers, repurchase agreements, and equity transactions before the current program enters its planned operational phase.

Stellar’s tokenized real-world asset market has ballooned from roughly $800 million in January to over $3 billion by July 2026. The problem? Most of those assets have been sitting on the sidelines of DeFi, unable to participate as collateral or in lending protocols because reliable onchain pricing simply didn’t exist for them.

RedStone, one of crypto’s more established oracle providers, just plugged that gap for Avant Protocol’s savUSD token. The integration delivers a contract rate feed capturing the savUSD/avUSD exchange rate directly on Stellar, giving DeFi protocols the standardized pricing data they need to actually use these assets.

What RedStone built and why it matters The feed launched on May 29 and follows Stellar’s SEP-40 oracle standard, a specification designed to let any protocol on the network consume pricing data without building bespoke integrations. Instead of every DeFi app on Stellar needing to wire up its own pricing source for savUSD, they can all pull from the same RedStone feed.

For savUSD specifically, the data functions as onchain Net Asset Value, or NAV, made available continuously for smart contracts running on Stellar’s Soroban execution environment.

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The broader SEP-40 implementation kicked off in March 2026, with RedStone planning a gradual rollout throughout the year. Six additional issuers are expected to receive similar oracle support by August, which would meaningfully expand the range of assets available for DeFi composability on Stellar.

RedStone reports no mispricing events across its existing feeds, a claim that carries real weight given how many DeFi exploits trace back to faulty or manipulated price data.

Inside savUSD: the asset getting priced SavUSD is a senior-tranche token from Avant Protocol, backed 1:1 by USDC and USDT collateral. It derives returns through delta-neutral trading strategies, capturing funding rate payments and basis trade spreads while hedging out directional market exposure.

Pennyworks, an independent third party, conducts weekly NAV calculations to verify the token’s value. Combined with the real-time onchain visibility that RedStone now provides, investors get two layers of price verification: one from traditional auditing cadence, another from continuous oracle feeds.

Before this integration, savUSD existed in a kind of DeFi limbo on Stellar. Without a price feed, a lending protocol can’t accept savUSD as collateral, a DEX can’t properly route trades, and an automated portfolio manager can’t rebalance positions that include it.

Stellar’s RWA growth meets its DeFi bottleneck Growing from $800 million to over $3 billion in tokenized assets within roughly six months puts Stellar among the fastest-expanding RWA networks in crypto. Each new asset on Stellar previously needed custom pricing solutions, creating a patchwork of data sources that raised integration costs and security risks. Standardizing through SEP-40 means protocols can support new assets faster, with less engineering overhead and fewer potential failure points.

The yield-bearing nature of savUSD makes proper pricing especially critical. Unlike a simple stablecoin pegged to $1, savUSD’s value fluctuates based on accumulated yield. A stale or inaccurate price feed could lead to under-collateralized positions or liquidation failures.

With six more issuers expected to receive RedStone oracle support by August, Stellar’s DeFi layer is approaching something closer to infrastructure maturity.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

TLDR: Spectra splits yield-bearing assets into Principal Tokens and Yield Tokens for separate trading. Yield Tokens give holders exposure to an asset’s future yield without owning it outright. Stellar’s Security Audit Bank confirms a completed Certora audit dated May 18, 2026. XCCY is also building a fixed-rate engine on Stellar, signaling growing sector demand. Spectra is bringing fixed-rate markets and tradable yield to the Stellar network, adding a new layer to its onchain economy.

The protocol splits yield-bearing assets into two separate tokens. One token carries fixed returns, while the other tracks variable yield exposure.

Stellar’s Security Audit Bank lists a completed Certora audit dated May 18, 2026, for the integration. The addition follows Stellar’s steady expansion across tokenized assets, lending and settlement infrastructure this year.

Spectra Splits Yield Into Two Tradable Markets Spectra describes itself as an open, permissionless interest-rate derivatives protocol. Its design takes a yield-bearing asset and divides it into two components.

These components are known as the Principal Token and the Yield Token. Once split, each piece can trade independently on its own market.

The Principal Token, or PT, represents the fixed-yield side of the arrangement. Holders buy the principal at a discount to its face value.

At maturity, that token can be redeemed for its full fixed value. This structure gives users a predictable return over a set period.

The Yield Token, or YT, works differently from its counterpart. It gives holders exposure specifically to the future yield of the underlying asset.

Rather than owning the asset itself, traders gain a claim on what it earns. This effectively allows the yield to be traded as its own instrument.

Crypto commentator Marco Salzmann framed this as part of a broader pattern building on Stellar. He described the network’s stack as moving through tokenized assets, lending, yield markets and settlement.

Spectra’s arrival adds another financial primitive to that sequence. Each layer, he noted, builds on the capital already sitting onchain.

Audit Confirms Integration as Competition Grows Stellar’s Security Audit Bank provides independent confirmation of the integration timeline. It lists an entry titled “Spectra – Interest Rate Markets on Stellar.”

The associated Certora audit was completed on May 18, 2026. That listing indicates the groundwork for deployment has already been reviewed.

Salzmann pointed to Stellar’s broader environment as a reason the protocol fits well there. The network has drawn real-world assets, stablecoins and institutional financial products in recent periods.

It has also been expanding its decentralized finance infrastructure alongside that growth. Interest-rate markets add a further tool for participants managing that capital.

Spectra is not the only protocol pursuing this type of infrastructure on Stellar. XCCY is separately integrating a fixed-rate engine designed for similar purposes.

That engine targets fixed yield, fixed-rate borrowing and hedging against variable interest rates. Both efforts point toward growing demand for interest-rate tools on the network.

The Stellar Development Foundation’s 2026 strategy focuses on bringing more capital onchain. It also emphasizes increasing how efficiently existing onchain assets are used. Fixed-rate markets and separable yield exposure support both of those stated goals.

As more asset types settle on Stellar, tools like Spectra give holders more ways to manage risk and return, rather than holding a single fixed exposure to whatever yield the market happens to produce at any given time.

The XRP Ledger has overtaken Stellar in the stablecoin race with further growth in Ripple USD (RLUSD). This change spotlights with the increasing activity of stablecoins on XRP and the growing demand for Ripple’s stablecoin.

XRP Ledger Outpaces Stellar In Terms of Stablecoin Supply According to DeFiLlama, XRP Ledger has a total stablecoin supply of $1.092 billion, ranking it 12th in the blockchain networks. Number-one ranked Steller is ranked 13th with $968.67 million. XRPL’s supply has increased by 14.29%, while the supply of Stellar has declined by 5.87%.

Over the past week, XRPL’s stablecoin supply increased about 13%. During the same period, Stellar’s decline was 6.5%. Not only that, XRP price exploded 20% and outshined XLM price during the recent crypto market rally.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2091049963728089363

The vast majority of XRP Ledger’s supply of stablecoins comes from RLUSD. According to the data, it makes up 90.49% of the total network. This puts RLUSD supply on XRPL at above $988 million.

In the case of supply, Ethereum still leads XRPL by a notable margin in terms of their RLUSD supply. In the past, XRP Ledger had outpaced Ethereum in RLUSD supply but the latter has since returned as the leader. As of the time of this writing, there are approximately $1.08 billion worth of RLUSD on Ethereum and $988.36 million worth of XRPL on the XRPL.

RLUSD Takes The Spotlight Again RLUSD has also surpassed the $2 billion market cap milestone. This puts it just a little further away from PayPal USD, which has a market value of approximately $2.87 billion. For context, RLUSD was founded by Ripple in December 2024. Hence, XRP Ledger validator Vet declared it “the fastest growing stablecoin regulated under the NYDFS.”

The stablecoin’s growth is occurring as Ripple advances on institutional credit markets. Ripple is also involved in a new endeavor to provide RLUSD loans to fintech and payments companies on XRPL with Clearpool and Cicada Partners.

Cicada will recruit borrowers and set up the parameters of the loan. Clearpool is building out the lending platform. Ripple will be funding the development.

This protocol is still being developed. XRP is still used for transaction fees and account balances on the XRPL. RLUSD is created to be used and liquidated in the ecosystem with dollars.