An Updated Mandate for a Growing Stellar Ecosystem

Established in 2014, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is on a mission to create equitable access to the global financial system by supporting the Stellar network to help unlock the world’s economic potential through blockchain technology.

In pursuit of that mission, in 2019 the SDF adopted a formal mandate to use the XLM entrusted to us to build, promote, and strengthen the Stellar network and ecosystem. That core mandate hasn't changed. Six years later, the tools, strategies, and focus areas necessary to fulfill it have evolved significantly as Stellar's real-world usage has grown.

Today, we're updating our mandate framework to reflect how we're allocating resources in 2025 and beyond.

Over the past several years, Stellar's usage has evolved significantly and positively. The network now powers production financial infrastructure for institutions and organizations worldwide. The developer community has grown. Real-world assets are flowing across borders. The ecosystem's needs have matured.

As a non-profit with no shareholders and no profit motive, SDF has the freedom to stay focused on long-term mission alignment rather than short-term revenue goals. We can be nimble, responsive to market demands, and strategic about where we deploy resources. This updated mandate reflects that approach.

We're reorganizing our XLM holdings from four accounts into a new structure that better reflects current priorities:

SDF Development covers our operational expenses—rent, servers, network-level marketing, advocacy, and policy work.

Stellar Growth is now our largest area of focus. This account funds everything from developer programs and hackathons to the Enterprise Fund investments that deepen infrastructure across wallets, exchanges, DeFi protocols, and payments companies. Growth also includes strategic initiatives like supporting projects that drive real user adoption of Stellar-powered applications.

Product and Innovation supports our work identifying, funding, and building high-impact tools the ecosystem needs. Sometimes that means building solutions ourselves or in collaboration with developers. Other times it means acquiring or supporting promising tools already in development. Either way, we're committed to ensuring the right infrastructure exists to unlock adoption.

Assets and Liquidity is our newest focus area, reflecting a critical truth: without diverse real-world assets on Stellar—and without the liquidity to move between them efficiently—the network cannot fulfill its promise as a global financial platform. This account supports asset issuance partnerships with institutions and fintechs, market-making programs, on and off-ramp infrastructure, and the integrations with bridges and compliance providers necessary to make issued assets genuinely useful.

As always, you can track our XLM balances in real-time using the links on our updated mandate page. We'll continue publishing quarterly reports with detailed accounting of our progress and XLM usage.

The goal remains what it's always been: deploy these resources transparently and strategically to create a thriving, inclusive financial ecosystem powered by Stellar. We're excited about what's ahead.