Stellar Development Foundation Q4 2022 in Review

2022 has wrapped up, and the Stellar Development Foundation made significant strides on its roadmap, delivering on the three building blocks: increase scalability and network innovation, activate more network participation, and demand and promote inclusion.

Our Q4 report outlines what SDF has accomplished, measured against the three building blocks. Highlights include:

• Smart contracts continued to be a high priority for SDF, with Soroban launching on Futurenet in early Q4. Designed as a batteries-included experience built to scale, Soroban allows Rust developers to access Stellar’s financial rails.
• Efforts to increase adoption on Soroban took place, with several initiatives launched in tandem with a $100M adoption fund. Sorobanathon: First Light, an incentive program designed to encourage tinkering and content creation, closed on December 15th and received more than its target goal of 50 submissions. Artists were encouraged to submit
• In addition to Sorobanathon, Stellar Quest Live Series 5 took place, solely focused on Soroban quests. This series garnered record-breaking participation, with over 2k new developers joining the Quester community.
• In late Q4, we were excited to launch Stellar Aid Assist, a tool enabling aid organizations to deliver urgently-needed cash assistance quickly, affordably, and transparently in the hands of recipients. Stellar Aid Assist is pioneering the future of aid delivery, with major aid organizations using this tool powered by the Stellar Disbursement Platform.
• In November, GMO Trust brought the world’s first regulated yen-backed stablecoin (GYEN), and the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin (ZUSD) to Stellar. Users will be able to transact seamlessly and cost-effectively across the established and proven Stellar network, leveraging GYEN and ZUSD for near-instant, borderless transactions.
• In Q4, SDF committed to a $1.5M Accelerator Fund investment in a Caribbean-based technology incubator and accelerator whose mission is to address global development and governance challenges by leveraging blockchain technology.
• In Q4, SDF planned for its annual marquee event, Meridian 2022, which took place in Rome, Italy from October 11 to 13. The theme for Meridian 2022 was the “Urgency of Doing,” inspired by a quote from Leonardo da Vinci. His wisdom proved to be prescient as SDF and the Stellar ecosystem and community all gathered together, considering a future fraught with problems that need to be solved sooner than later.
• SDF CEO Denelle Dixon testified before the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry regarding digital assets legislation.
• The Stellar Community Fund continues its hot streak in 2022, receiving 304 applications worldwide across Round 10 & 11, encompassing use cases including remittances, wallet applications, marketplaces, and more.
• The first version of the Stellar Anchor Platform has launched and is available for use. The Anchor Platform aims to help increase adoption by increasing the growth of the Stellar anchor network, both in terms of the number of anchors and number of integrations with those anchors. It is currently in final testing with 2 new Stellar anchors who participated in the early access program.
• We debuted SDF’s new roadmap for 2023, our core focus being: utility is the growth exponent. With delivering utility as our guiding principle, we will be able to bring more builders to the network, and with more builders, that utility grows exponentially. Thus, our three building blocks are: 1) making innovation easy and scalable, 2) winning over builders, and 3) focusing on utility to build trust.

‍Read the Q4 report to learn more about these highlights and other strategic achievements from this quarter. You can also watch the Q4-in-review webinar below, where Denelle Dixon (SDF CEO and Executive Director) was joined by Justin Rice (VP of Ecosystem) and Jordan Edelstein (Chief Marketing Officer) to cover growth metrics for the Stellar network and other highlights and accomplishments from the third quarter of 2022.