Stellar Development Foundation Q1 2022 in Review

The Stellar Development Foundation hit the ground running in the first quarter, publishing its 2022 roadmap and three building blocks essential to its path forward: increase scalability and network innovation, activate more network participation, and demand and promote inclusion.

Our Q1 report outlines what SDF has accomplished, measured against the three building blocks. Highlights include:

• In March, Project Jump Cannon was announced, with research being conducted on introducing native on-chain smart contracts to Stellar. One of the first major decisions to make was choosing a smart contract platform. Over the past couple of months, SDF’s Engineering team focused on surveying the current smart contracts landscape. The team created selection criteria and a thorough comparison of existing technologies, which can be found in the latest Project Jump Cannon blog post.
• Starbridge, a trust-minimized integration between Stellar and Ethereum, is another project in development launched this quarter. Blockchain adoption and utility have boomed in recent years, establishing their place in the global financial system. At the same time, the ecosystem is also seeing increasing fragmentation that mirrors the fragmentation seen in traditional finance. If Stellar is to create more equitable access to financial infrastructure, it also needs a way to interoperate with the growing space of DeFi, which now includes other blockchain networks like Ethereum.
• SDF announced the first cohort of four Matching Fund investments totaling $1.5 million, and $92.5 million distributed in overall Enterprise Fund investments since its launch.
• SDF celebrated one year of USDC on the Stellar network, which has been game-changing for so many builders on Stellar. USDC with Stellar capabilities brought more opportunities for fintechs, wallets, exchanges, and developers to power fast, seamless, and more affordable cross-border solutions.
• Exchanges are some of the many players in the Stellar ecosystem leveraging USDC on the network, and Newton and Okcoin are among the latest to join the growing list of exchanges offering their customers USDC on Stellar.
• Stellar ecosystem participant and Enterprise Fund recipient Wyre was acquired by fintech company Bolt for $1.5 billion, considered the largest crypto merger in history.
• In March, the Biden Administration issued a long-awaited Executive Order outlining a whole-of-government approach to cryptocurrency policy—the first of its kind. SDF released a statement, supporting the call for greater regulatory and policy clarity that balances the need to protect against risks while allowing for responsible innovation.
• SDF continued to make its presence known throughout the industry by sponsoring SXSW’s Finance 3.0 summit. This marks SDF’s largest event activation this quarter, with sessions seeing full attendance and an NFT hackathon receiving more than 200 project submissions.

‍‍Read the Q1 report to learn more about these highlights and other strategic achievements from this quarter. You can also watch the Q1-in-review webinar below, where Denelle Dixon (SDF CEO and Executive Director) was joined by Tomer Weller (VP of Tech Strategy) and Jordan Edelstein (Chief Marketing Officer) to cover growth metrics for the Stellar network and other highlights and accomplishments from the first quarter of 2022.

Correction: During the webinar, we shared the [email protected] email address as the place to direct questions about business development inquiries. The correct email address is [email protected].