Smart Contracts Go Live on Stellar, Kicking Off a “New Era” for the Network

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has announced the successful deployment of smart contracts on the network, a development they believe will revolutionize their tech stack.

In a Tuesday blog post, the SDF revealed that the Stellar (XLM) network validators had successfully implemented the “Protocol 20” upgrade, enabling the activation of smart contracts and initiating the phased rollout of their smart contract platform, Soroban.

“Stellar network validators voted to upgrade Mainnet to Protocol 20, kicking off a new era for the Stellar smart contracts tech stack, which delivers a secure, batteries-included developer experience built to scale and for real-world use,” the announcement read.

Smart Contracts to Enhance Developer Experience on Stellar

The introduction of smart contracts on Stellar aims to enhance the developer experience, particularly for those utilizing the Rust and WebAssembly (WASM) programming languages.

The move is expected to provide a more user-friendly environment for developers.

Smart Contracts are LIVE on Stellar! #XLM pic.twitter.com/7WNzxnqc5f

— Zach Rector (@ZachRector7) February 20, 2024

Soroban, the smart contract platform initially deployed to the Stellar testnet in October 2022, incorporates scalability features such as predictable fees and independent resource pricing.

The SDF emphasized that this new smart contract ecosystem would empower the creation of decentralized applications (DApps), enabling developers to build innovative protocols and applications on the Stellar network.

The deployment of smart contracts on the mainnet was delayed in January due to a bug found in Stellar Core. 

Although the SDF assured that the bug posed minimal risk, they wanted to address it before rolling out the smart contract platform to ensure the stability and security of applications built on it.

Stellar’s $100 Million Funding Initiative

To encourage developers to embrace the Soroban smart contract platform, the SDF initiated a $100 million funding initiative in October 2022.

Over the past two years, the SDF, in collaboration with the Stellar community, has been working on developing smart contract functionality.

However, despite the recent developments, Stellar’s native token XLM did not witness a significant price surge.

Over the past 24 hours, XLM has experienced a 1% decline, currently valued at $0.116.

XLM has struggled to keep pace with the broader crypto market rally in 2024, remaining 87% below its all-time high of $0.875, reached in January 2018.

The cryptocurrency is among the oldest and most established blockchain projects, having been founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb.

Before Stellar, McCaleb founded Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox and was the co-creator of Ripple.