• The Soroban smart contracts capability is now live on Stellar Mainnet.
• Stellar Development Foundation has earmarked $100 million to bootstrap the growth in the ecosystem.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has announced the expansion of the Stellar Network with the introduction of smart contracts and a $100 million Soroban Adoption Fund. These developments signal a bullish momentum for Stellar Lumens (XLM).

Soroban Goes Live on Stellar’s Network 

SDF highlighted in a press release that Soroban, the platform for smart contracts on Stellar, is now operational on the mainnet of the network. This means that anyone can create, implement, and communicate with Decentralized Applications (dApps) based on Stellar.

Soroban’s integration into the Stellar mainnet represents the SDF’s strategic move to broaden the network’s capabilities beyond traditional payments. Stellar, therefore, positions itself to become the center for a wide range of publicly available financial services by facilitating the creation of smart contracts. In addition to settlements, the integration of smart contracts through Soroban will facilitate the operation of increasingly complex financial products and services on the Stellar network.

Meanwhile, the Soroban $100 million Soroban adoption fund, has already started bearing fruit, with the SDF supporting over 160 projects. Notable participants include industry giants like Axelar, Allbridge, and Band Protocol, and emerging players like Soroswap.finance and Blend. This diverse ecosystem of projects demonstrates Soroban’s versatility and appeal as a platform for blockchain-related innovation and growth.

The impact of Soroban goes far beyond theoretical possibilities. During its two-year testing phase, which ended in January 2024, Soroban drew significant interest from developers around the world, with 190 projects participating in its minimal viable ecosystem. During this time, SDF invested approximately 15% of its $100 million Soroban adoption fund in dApps ranging from lending and borrowing to insurance, auditing, and more. 

The Stellar Development Foundation’s Vice President of Product, Tomer Weller, described the organization’s goals for Soroban, stating:

Soroban opens the doors for decentralized applications to easily plug into the existing global financial market, without compromising speed or scalability. We look forward to seeing a variety of world-changing dapps built on Stellar.

Echoing earlier coverage from Crypto News Flash, Soroban offers a developer-friendly environment through its plug-and-play SDKs and local sandboxes. An optimized fee model and multi-core scaling ensure that any Soroban-based app can scale to serve billions of users, while its integration with Stellar provides access to global on and off-ramps.

Furthermore, the Soroban project is anticipated to compete with Ethereum, which has been the leader in the smart contract space, as formerly reported by Crypto News Flash.

Bullish Momentum for XLM 

These recent developments have injected fresh bullish momentum into XLM. As smart contracts open up new avenues for innovation and the Soroban adoption fund provides ample resources for expansion, XLM stands to benefit from increased demand and utility within the ecosystem.

As of the time of writing, XLM is trading at $0.1241, representing a 3.9% increase in the past day. Additionally, the market capitalization is pegged at $3.5 billion, while trading volume stands at $217 million.