The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization that maintains and develops the Stellar network, an open-source blockchain designed for affordable payments and asset tokenization. Founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb (who also co-founded Ripple) and Joyce Kim, Stellar was created with a specific focus on financial inclusion — making it easier for underbanked populations to access digital financial services.
The Stellar network processes transactions in 3-5 seconds with fees that are fractions of a cent, making it practical for small-value transfers that would be uneconomical on more expensive networks. The native token, XLM (Lumens), serves as a bridge currency and covers minimal transaction fees on the network.
Stellar has attracted notable partnerships in the payments and financial services space. MoneyGram integrated Stellar for USDC-based remittances. The network has been chosen by several governments and central banks for digital currency pilots. Circle selected Stellar as one of the primary chains for USDC distribution, bringing significant stablecoin volume to the network.
The Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) achieves consensus through federated Byzantine agreement, which is energy-efficient and doesn’t require mining. While this means the network is faster and cheaper than proof-of-work chains, it also means validator selection relies on trust relationships rather than economic incentives.
SDF also developed Soroban, a smart contract platform that brought programmable contract functionality to Stellar for the first time. Before Soroban, Stellar’s capabilities were limited to payments and simple asset operations. The addition of smart contracts significantly expanded what developers can build on the network.
Based in San Francisco, the Stellar Development Foundation uses its XLM holdings to fund ecosystem development and grants. The foundation has distributed millions of dollars to projects building on Stellar, with a particular focus on real-world payment use cases in developing markets.
