The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has launched Soroban, a smart contracts platform on the Stellar network, marking a significant upgrade in the project's history. After a two-year testing phase, Soroban's mainnet phase 2 went live, enabling the creation of user-ready decentralized applications. Soroban introduces a new mechanism for deploying smart contracts, expanding the ecosystem of applications on the Stellar blockchain. The platform uses WebAssembly (WASM) for traditional web and blockchain integrations. The introduction of smart contracts on Stellar aims to extend the network's utility beyond crypto payments to include decentralized finance (DeFi) and other financial services. SDF has allocated $100 million to a Soroban Adoption Fund to support development on this new platform, funding over 160 projects. Projects building on Stellar include bridge projects, Axela, Allbridge, the Band Protocol oracle, and DeFi newcomers like Sworoswap and Blend. Stellar, co-founded by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim in 2014, is an open-source blockchain network for cross-border transactions. Initially a fork of Ripple, Stellar introduced a unique codebase and consensus mechanism, the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), to overcome challenges. While Stellar has supported smart contracts in the past, the core team has focused on developing Soroban as a general-purpose, developer-friendly platform for deploying WASM-based high-performance dApps.

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 Development Foundation (SDF) rolled out Soroban, a smart contracts platform on the payment-focused network, marking one of the most significant upgrades in the project’s ten-year history.After a two-year testing phase, Soroban's mainnet phase 2 went live today, allowing the creation of user-ready decentralized applications.Soroban offers developers a new mechanism to deploy smart contracts, expanding the ecosystem of applications built on the Stellar blockchain. The platform leverages WebAssembly (WASM)—a binary code format tailored for traditional web and blockchain integrations.Stellar’s introduction of smart contracts aims to broaden the network’s use beyond crypto payments to include decentralized finance (DeFi) and other financial services.SDF has also allocated $100 million to a Soroban adoption fund to support development on this new platform. The fund has funded over 160 projects, focusing on leveraging Stellar’s smart contract capabilities for various applications. Projects building on Stellar include bridge projects, Axelar, Allbridge, the Band Protocol oracle, and DeFi newcomers including Sworoswap and Blend.Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim co-founded Stellar in 2014. It is an open-source blockchain network focused on enabling cross-border transactions.Initially, Stellar operated on a system akin to Ripple since it was conceptualized as a fork. However, facing challenges and driven by the aspiration for a unique solution, Stellar introduced a completely revamped codebase with a renewed consensus mechanism termed the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP).Although Stellar has supported smart contracts in the past, the core team has progressively focused on developing Soroban as a general-purpose and developer-friendly platform to deploy WASM-based high-performance dapps.

Stellar Launches Soroban Smart Contracts Platform, Expanding Blockchain Ecosystem