Earlier this year, I wrote an article about composability as a concept: the idea that developers can deliver new functionality by building on and combining existing protocols. In that piece, I compared composability to building a hot rod. You begin with the frame, then add pieces that fit your goals. Want more speed? Swap in a more powerful engine. Need precision? Upgrade the brakes and suspension. Each part is modular, and as your needs change, you can replace or enhance components without needing to rebuild the entire car.

That plug-and-play model is a huge advantage for entrepreneurs in Web3. Instead of spending months focused on building core primitives, you can plug into well-audited protocols with existing liquidity. A lending app can integrate an established oracle or custody service; a token issuer can connect directly to a proven money market. You’re developing on top of infrastructure that’s already battle-tested, so your time and effort can go into the features that differentiate your product.

Composability also boosts TVL and capital efficiency in the ecosystem. Instead of each app competing for siloed TVL, liquidity is shared and reused across DeFi products like lending markets, AMMs, and yield strategies. Assets stay productive rather than sitting idle, and collateral can be reused in multiple protocols within the same ecosystem. That shared liquidity creates strong network effects: more integrations enable more use cases, which attracts more users and capital, opening up the opportunity for new products.

Before 2024, composability on Stellar was only a concept; however, with the launch of smart contracts, it has become a powerful reality. Today, there are several integrations on Mainnet (one of which is the Blend/DeFindex/Beans combo that I’ll describe in detail below) and multiple hackathons built around composability tracks. For developers, that means you’re plugging into an ecosystem that lets you build a viable product more quickly.

First, we have the base layer: Blend, a decentralized lending protocol created by Script3 for Stellar applications. Users can deposit assets into separate lending pools, where yields are generated from borrower interest payments and dynamic rate optimization. Each pool is safeguarded by Blend’s backstop module, which helps maintain liquidity and mitigate risks during market volatility. The protocol offers competitive yields that can be claimed and reinvested, producing sustainable APYs that vary by asset and market demand.

For applications such as Beans, using Blend as a base layer means access to a robust, audited lending primitive without having to build or maintain the lending infrastructure themselves.

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Finally, Beans sits at the top of the stack as the user-facing layer. Beans already offered a clean wallet experience and cash on and off-ramps, but the team wanted to allow users to earn yield directly within the interface. Doing so required more than a simple connection to Blend; they needed yield strategies that didn’t require custody of user funds, automated portfolio rebalancing across multiple DeFi protocols, and a way to monetize those activities. Rather than building that infrastructure themselves, Beans integrates with DeFindex. Through DeFindex’s APIs, Beans exposes yield-generating strategies in a simple in-app experience, while DeFindex routes deposits into Blend behind the scenes.

The result is a hands-off experience: the wallet manages none of the DeFi mechanics, yet users still access onchain yield through a familiar interface.

This three-layered integration between Beans, DeFindex, and Blend is just one example of composability on the network. Blend has become one of the most widely integrated DeFi protocols on Stellar. It’s been adopted by several wallets, including Meru, Airtm, and Lobstr, each using Blend’s lending pools to power earning experiences for users. This growing web of integrations shows how a single, well-built protocol can serve as shared infrastructure across the ecosystem rather than a siloed product.

For Beans, integrating with DeFindex and Blend has produced promising results. After implementing the plug-and-play vaults, the average deposit amount nearly tripled. In addition, more than 70% of users who tried the earn feature have continued to use it over time. That retention highlights how composability doesn’t just make things easier for developers; it makes products stickier and more engaging for users.

Beyond UX and retention, integrations like this also create a business opportunity for both Beans and DeFindex. In DeFindex’s model, the integration product (Beans, in this case) chooses what percentage of users’ yield to keep as a fee for providing the experience. DeFindex then takes a negotiated share of that fee for operating the routing and vault infrastructure. That structure turns user deposits into a shared revenue stream for both the app and the aggregator.

In 2025, composability on Stellar shifted from a concept to a reality. Stellar has money markets, abstraction layers, wallets, oracles, and tooling that you can plug together instead of rebuilding from scratch, so you can ship faster and focus on what makes your product different. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to build on Stellar, this is it. In just 2025 alone, Stellar’s TVL has increased by ~193%, monthly active developers have doubled, and RWA value has increased by ~118%; the ecosystem is growing.

Start small, plug into existing infrastructure like Blend, DeFindex, Soroswap, and Reflector. Then you can iterate on UX, business model, and specialized features as you go. And you don’t have to do it alone! Be sure to jump into the Stellar Developer Discord for feedback, collaborators, and to stay knowledgeable about what’s being built!

To make sure it doesn’t feel like you’re starting from zero, Stellar also has tools that give you a head start:

• Scaffold Stellar: a developer toolkit for building dapps and smart contracts on Stellar. It helps you go from idea to working full-stack dapps faster by providing CLI tools, reusable contract templates, a smart contract registry, a modern frontend, and more. SDF and the community recently ran a hackathon where developers were challenged to build projects with Scaffold Stellar. Check out the exciting projects that were built on the DoraHacks page.
• OpenZeppelin contracts and tooling: a suite of tools and scalable smart contracts to give developers a solid foundation to work off of in their building journey. Available contracts include smart accounts, fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), real-world assets (RWAs), and a vault.

Learn more here!