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Stellar Lumens / Tether USD
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Welcome to the Weekly thread. Ask anything (no question is too basic), share what you're building or reading, and chat about the week, price included. New here? Start with [Getting Started](https://redd.it/1xajpf8). **Stay safe:** nobody legit will DM you offering wallet help, refunds or airdrops. Never share your secret key (it starts with S) or recovery phrase. [Stay Safe guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellar/wiki/stay-safe) # Last week on Stellar * **Bell (Protocol 30) is coming.** It adds muxed contract addresses, post-quantum (ML-DSA) signature checks for smart contracts and millisecond ledger timing. Existing contracts are unaffected. Validators vote on testnet Nov 3 and on mainnet Nov 23, so developers should update their SDKs before Nov 3. [Announcement](https://stellar.org/blog/developers/introducing-bell-protocol-30-on-stellar) · [Upgrade guide](https://stellar.org/blog/developers/bell-protocol-30-upgrade-guide) * **First institutional repo on Stellar.** Ascend and M1X Global ran 72 hourly financing rolls from Oct 16 to 19, using USDM1, a tokenized bond backed by US Treasuries, as collateral. [Press release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261023351098/en/Ascend-and-M1X-Global-Complete-First-Institutional-Repo-on-Stellar-Using-USDM1-Secured-Sovereign-Bond) * **SDF's Q3 figures.** $25.1B in stablecoin volume (up 314% year over year), $4.1B in tokenized real-world assets and 3,922 monthly active developers. [SDF on X](https://x.com/StellarOrg/status/2112310731488084410) * **Comet BLND-USDC payouts have started.** Zenith Protocols sent the first payout of funds recovered after the Aug 25 exploit to 510 accounts, based on positions held before it. Nobody needs your secret key to send you a payout. [Zenith on X](https://x.com/ZenithProtocols/status/2113723036188754286) * **OpenZeppelin Stellar Contracts v0.8.0.** Adds confidential token balances and transfers using zero-knowledge proofs, plus seven compliance modules for regulated tokens. Upgrading from v0.7 brings breaking changes. [Release notes](https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/stellar-contracts/releases/tag/v0.8.0) * **Regional builder awards.** $95K in Instawards went to 19 teams in the Philippines and $75K to 15 builders in Turkey. [Roundup](https://lumenloop.com/research/stellar-weekly-roundup-week-oct-23-2026) Summaries are ours, based on Lumen Loop's [Stellar Weekly Roundup](https://lumenloop.com/research/stellar-weekly-roundup-week-oct-23-2026), an independent Stellar news site. Read it for the full week. # Coming up this week * **Meridian 2026 week in Lisbon:** HackMeridian (Sun Oct 25 to Mon Oct 26), then SDF's annual conference (Wed Oct 28 to Thu Oct 29). Sessions, side events and announcements are in the [Meridian 2026 Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellar/comments/1xfjyc2/meridian\_2026\_megathread/). **Next deadlines:** Bell testnet vote Nov 3 · SCF #46 submissions close Nov 8 · Bell mainnet vote Nov 23 # Stellar by the numbers **Last week: Sun Oct 18 to Sat Oct 24 (UTC).** Market changes compare with the week before. Each line links to where the number comes from. **Market** * **XLM price at Saturday's close:** $0.171 (down 3.1%) · [CoinGecko](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/stellar) * **XLM traded during the week:** $787M (down 18.2%) · [CoinGecko](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/stellar/historical_data) **Network** (totals for the week) * **Successful transactions:** 25.2M · [Live on SDF's dashboard](https://dashboard.stellar.org/) * **Operations (payments, trades and other actions):** 62.1M * **Average time per ledger (Stellar's blocks):** 5.0 seconds Weekly network totals swing with automated trading activity, so we show totals rather than week-to-week changes. **Assets and DeFi** (latest totals) * **Tokenized real-world assets:** $3.75B (up 10.9% over the last 30 days) · [rwa.xyz](https://app.rwa.xyz/networks/stellar) * **Stablecoins:** $801M (down 1.7% over 7 days) · [DefiLlama](https://defillama.com/stablecoins/Stellar) * **DeFi value locked:** $199M (weekly change starts next week) · [DefiLlama](https://defillama.com/chain/stellar) Network figures are our own count of every ledger in the week, from Stellar's public Horizon API. Data only, not financial advice. More views: [CoinMarketCap](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/stellar/) · [All public dashboards](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/analytics/public-dashboards) # Community standards * Be respectful. Debate ideas, not people. No personal attacks. * Questions are welcome. If you answer, link a source when you can. * No shilling. No referral links, manipulation or coordinated brigading. * Builders: share progress here anytime. Launches and big updates get their own post. * See a problem? Report it. Don't escalate disputes in the thread. Announcing reports or predicting bans can lead to a ban. r/Stellar *is community-run and not run by the Stellar Development Foundation. Third-party links are not endorsements. Spot a mistake?* [*Message the mods*](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Stellar)*.*

There used to be a very simple process back in the day, fast and cheap. Stellarmint ( https://stellarmint.io/open-token-account/ ) used to let users create tokens easily, starting at $20 a year. However, during the bullrun of 2021 it got severely abused by pump-n-dumpers where there were 100s of useless tokens created via the service (kind of like pump.fun). So I guess it's always nice to sell shovels during the rush, but remember it's your branded shovel that is going to be used. This is because of the **stellar.toml** file. The key distinction is issuing the asset versus publishing its branding. Stellar documents the logo and description through a hosted stellar.toml file linked to the issuer’s home domain. A tool that creates the token doesn’t necessarily handle that part. You can check this page for examples of the branding that gets associated because of the .toml file : https://stellarmint.io/tokens/ -- I stumbled upon the Bitbond token tool page just today ( https://tokentool.bitbond.com/stellar/create-token/classic-asset/mainnet ). Very professional indeed, especially if you're familiar with Bitbond on Stellar (since 2019), a few examples: - **2019:** Issued its own tokenized bond, [BB1, on Stellar](https://www.bitbond.com/resources/what-is-the-bitbondsto). - **2020:** Helped Bankhaus von der Heydt launch [EURB, a euro-backed stablecoin on Stellar](https://stellar.org/press/bitbond-and-bankhaus-von-der-heydt-issue-euro-stablecoin-eurb-on-the-stellar-network). - **2021:** Provided technology for [Vonovia’s €20 million digital bond on Stellar](https://www.bitbond.com/resources/digital-assets-in-action-vonovias-blockchain-based-bond-issuance). - **2023:** Worked with ABN AMRO and Fireblocks on [APOC’s €450,000 tokenized bond on Stellar](https://www.fireblocks.com/blog/abn-amro-issues-first-digital-bond-with-fireblocks). Their own pricing: " The service fee for issuing an asset is **499 USD**, charged in XLM in the same transaction that pays the initial supply to the distribution account. Later management actions on an existing asset — mint, freeze, unfreeze, authorize a holder, clawback, lock the issuer — cost 5 USD each, and distributions cost 1 USD per recipient. Adding a trustline is free. " -- There's a free option on testnet as well: https://stellar.cheesecakelabs.com/ But it does seem the mainnet route seems to be either manual and free, or fast and expensive.

Im brand new and just heard of XLM, etc; where do I buy it?