Ecosystem
Stellar i³ Awards 2025
Author
Anke Liu
Publishing date
Celebrating impact, innovation, and interoperability in the Stellar ecosystem
Back for its second year, the Stellar i³ Awards are now a signature honor at Stellar Meridian—recognizing projects that deliver impact, set the bar for innovation, and advance interoperability across the Stellar ecosystem and beyond. This year’s momentum was unmistakable: 70+ applications, 98 SCF voters shortlisting 12 finalists, live pitches before 9 judges in the Pitch Arena, and winners revealed during Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) CEO Denelle Dixon’s closing keynote.
The winners of the Stellar i³ Awards 2025 are:
- Impact: Decaf
- Innovation: Etherfuse
- Interoperability: DeFindex
Learn more on what each shipped below—and what made them stand out.
Impact winner
Decaf — stablecoins you can actually use
Presented by Fernanda Orduña Rangel (Co-founder). Judged by Jose Fernandez da Ponte (Stellar Development Foundation), Vanessa Almeida (Brazilian Development Bank), and Ali Al-Zuhairi (United Nations Development Programme).
What they do: Decaf is a non-custodial financial services app, letting people and organizations send, receive, invest, and spend stablecoins like USDC with real-world utility.
Why it’s a breakthrough on Stellar:
- Access & UX: Cash-out in 180+ countries via MoneyGram (#1 wallet by MG volume); tap-to-pay with the Decaf Visa Card (with Rain); gasless Stellar transactions, simple swaps (USDC/XLM/others), and non-custodial by default.
- Adoption & Growth: according to Decaf, 50k users in 130+ countries; 46% avg MoM growth (2025); >$32M monthly volume (Aug ’25); Stellar share of volume up 7% → 20% → 35% from May–Aug (>$10M/mo on Stellar).
- Programmatic Impact: NGOs and multilaterals deliver salaries and aid via the Stellar Disbursement Platform through Decaf.
Decaf allows users to turn Stellar stablecoins into everyday cash—non-custodial, with real cash-in/out and merchant/NGO tooling—lowering costs, speeding access, and powering cross-border daily use at scale.
Innovation winner
Etherfuse — RWAs as usable rails
Presented by Dave Taylor (Co-founder). Judged by Tomer Weller (Stellar Development Foundation), Tracy Li (Claribay Capital), and Joseph Benson-Aruna (DFS Lab).
Etherfuse brings Stablebonds—tokenized government treasuries—natively to Stellar, and pairs them with MXNe, a peso-denominated stable value issued with Brale and backed by CETES.
Why it’s a breakthrough on Stellar:
- One trustline away: Add Stablebonds, hold yield-bearing instruments, and trade them on the Stellar DEX.
- Local currency that works: MXNe unlocks payroll, commerce, and remittances in real MXN, on Stellar.
- Proof in numbers: according to Etherfuse, 175M+ Stablebonds purchased to date (current holdings ~5M). MXNe volumes hit ~638M pesos in July 2025 with ~297k average ticket size.
By tokenizing treasuries and launching peso-denominated stable value on Stellar, Etherfuse shipped a new composable primitive for savings, lending, and payments showing promising adoption.
Interoperability winner
DeFindex — one integration, many protocols
Presented by Francisco Catrileo (Co-Founder). Judged by Justin Rice (Stellar Development Foundation), Ronaldo Lemos (ITS Rio + SDF Board Member), and Chandrakana Nandi (Certora).
DeFindex makes Stellar DeFi plug-and-play. Wallets integrate one API and instantly launch vaults that turn complex DeFi strategies into simple savings accounts.Wallets integrate one API and instantly launch vaults that turn complex DeFi strategies into simple savings solutions. Users get a clean deposit/withdraw flow, while DeFindex smart contract handle strategy routing, awards, rebalancing, and accounting behind the scenes.
Why it’s a breakthrough on Stellar:
- Integrations: Blend (fixed + YieldBlox pools), Soroswap for reward swaps; Beans App already live with EURC/USDC savings ($610k+ TVL in 3 months).
- Secure + extensible: Clear docs, audited contracts, rescue mechanics, and auto-compounding strategies.
- Next up: Stablebonds strategies via Etherfuse (e.g., MXNe → bonds → auto-compound) for simple “peso savings” flows.
DeFindex turns Stellar DeFi into a plug-and-play API for wallets—live with Blend and Soroswap in well-known wallets such as Beans—cutting integration friction and accelerating liquidity across the network.
Meet the other finalists
Each of these teams pushed the bar in their own way—shipping real products, real integrations, and real outcomes on Stellar. A quick look into those who closely followed the winners:
Impact:
- Beans App: A wallet built for —cash/bank on-ramps, local-currency stablecoins, and yield without crypto complexity on Stellar.
- Blend: The Stellar lending primitive—permissionless, audited credit markets that power savings and future loans across wallets and dApps.
- Meru: Web3 money for emerging markets—save, spend, and send USD stablecoins while bridging Visa, banks, cash networks, and Stellar DeFi.
Innovation:
- Almanax: An AI Security Engineer for Stellar—detects, triages, and patches vulnerabilities in Soroban/classic code for continuous assurance.
- Soroswap Finance: Soroban AMM + Aggregator—gasless trustlines and a Swap Route API that unifies Stellar liquidity and connects cross-chain.
- Dogstar: A Stellar-first “play-to-learn” league—on-chain quests that drive real swaps/LP/trades with zero custody and ledger-verified rewards.
Interoperability:
- Hana Wallet: One app that links MoneyGram/Coinbase Pay ramps, cross-chain swaps, and a Mastercard—making Stellar assets spendable anywhere.
- Reflector: The decentralized oracle layer for Stellar—trusted price/FX feeds securing major DeFi protocols across classic + Soroban.
- Stellarcarbon: A two-way bridge to Verra—API/Soroban tools that let Stellar apps retire real carbon credits with registry-verified proofs.
The i³ Awards are built on a rigorous, community-led process and celebrate projects that raise the standard for everyone: users, builders, and partners. Each winner sets a benchmark others can build on—and that’s exactly how prestige compounds in an ecosystem.
Congratulations to Decaf, Etherfuse, and DeFindex, and thank you to every finalist that took the stage. If you’re building toward Impact, Innovation, or Interoperability on Stellar, we can’t wait to see what you ship next.