The Stellar Development Foundation development team has published the results of a year in the life of the protocol. Among its key achievements are the growth of the XLM network in size and quality, expansion of partnerships — in particular, with MoneyGram — as well as new initiatives undertaken.
Recall that Stellar emerged as a decentralized open-source answer to Ripple after one of its founders, Jed McCaleb, became dissatisfied with the development path.
Key points
Stellar network is said to have seen a 176% increase in the number of payments processed, with a final figure of 345.9 million. The number of XLM accounts is also reported to have grown by 17%, reaching 7.37 million. Overall, 3.6 billion operations have been processed through the Stellar protocol to date, up 92% year-over-year.
During the year, Stellar also launched Soroban, a platform for creating smart contracts that now operates on the Futurenet testnet. At the same time that Soroban was launched, the organization launched a $100 million investment fund.
The Stellar Development Foundation report also recalls the rollout of MoneyGram Access in partnership with the payment company of the same name. Further, with this solution, which is a global on/off-ramp, the humanitarian service Stellar Aid Assist was launched, allowing those in distress to receive USDC quickly and then cash it out.