Leveraging On-Chain Assets to Support the Stellar Ecosystem

At the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), we are focused on innovative financial support for those building and growing the Stellar network. In fact, it’s right here in our mandate. We’ve been very busy lately, with over $57 million in USD value distributed via grants, the Stellar Community Fund, and the SDF Enterprise Fund equity investments in the last couple years. This support is inextricably tied to our mission of creating equitable access to the global financial system. With our most recent support of Airtm, Tribal Credit, Wyre, Settle, and Leaf Global, we’re catalyzing the growth of cross-border payments and international financial services.

So we asked ourselves, how can we do more? Today, we moved $150 million of Stellar USDC on-chain, another step toward supporting the growth and development of the Stellar ecosystem. Leveraging on-chain assets to financially support the ecosystem is another way to show the value of Stellar. So many projects are building on Stellar and creating new pathways for expanding financial inclusion. We want to be able to leverage those pathways.

With these on-chain assets, we can now help the ecosystem with the tools we already have and continue to add more to our toolbox. To that end, we’ve heard the growing demand from ecosystem partners that debt financing can advance innovative projects, both new and existing, on Stellar. The financing will be based in Stellar USDC, a fully reserved digital dollar currency issued by Circle and governed by Centre, a membership-based consortium that sets technical, policy and financial standards for stablecoins. Stellar USDC allows for near-zero transaction costs and takes about 5 seconds to finalize a transaction. We’ve seen how ecosystem companies are already leveraging USDC on Stellar worldwide. Moving $150 million worth of USDC on-chain provides SDF with a pool of flexible capital that can be deployed quickly to help these projects with tailored financing when they need it most. We’re looking to further reinforce Stellar USDC as the “go-to” stablecoin for projects utilizing a digital dollar currency for global settlement.

Community support and Stellar ecosystem growth have always been our top priorities. Now, the Stellar ecosystem is asking for new ways to meet their liquidity needs and encourage growth. Having USDC ready on-chain to further support the needs of these companies will remove roadblocks for fast-growing projects, such as enabling cross-border payments and remittances on Stellar, which ultimately drives toward SDF’s goal of expanding financial inclusion and access.

As with our current mandate grants and Enterprise Fund investments, SDF will continually evaluate projects based on their potential value to the Stellar network and ecosystem. Funding will be available for a variety of different Stellar ecosystem company needs, including working capital loans to payment companies and debt financing for lending businesses.

We’re excited to accelerate growth and unlock the potential of the Stellar ecosystem with these on-chain assets and new tools – and this is only the beginning.