Justin Rice of Stellar Development Fund (SDF), via a blog post, on the 23rd of November announced that the stellar public network has been upgraded to protocol 15 which has two new features- sponsored reserves and claimable balances. The stellar protocol has been keen on making its network user friendly. This is why it has launched efforts in the direction of increasing its user experience. Sponsored reserves and claimable balances are two of such efforts. After the features were introduced, it was voted in by the validating nodes on the network.

According to previous explanations from Justin Rice, the head of ecosystem at SDF, the two new features will aid developers in onboarding new users. Previously, developers have had to go through the rigor of explaining to newbies how to use different exchanges to get XLM for minimum balance. To be able to use stellar, they need a minimum balance to activate their accounts. Another alternative is for the developers to send the minimum balance. This attracted spammers who created multiple accounts with the strategy of scrapping the balances to sell.

With sponsored reserves, developers can now sponsor the needed minimum account balance. The minimum balance will still be at the total control of the developer. He can revoke the balance anytime he likes. 

Another previous barrier was the fact that developers have to educate new users on how to add trust lines before they can receive new assets. An example is a user who wishes to send USD to a relative abroad using Cowrie on the stellar network. Developers have to educate the user on how to add USD trustline on his account to be able to send it.

The new claimable balances will allow developers like Cowrie to send new assets to accounts. The sent transaction will contain the “add trustline” command. The amount to add a new trustline can be deducted from what the user paid to remit USD. 

But, on second thought, there is a question to ask: Will this feature not encourage developers to send unwarranted assets to users? Seeing the amount to create a trustline might be the restraining factor for developers with such an idea (about 0.5 XLM or $0.08 as at the time of writing).

Developers and users are directed to update their stellar related software to avoid experiencing issues:

“If you haven’t upgraded your Stellar-related software, you will likely experience issues today.  The fix is simple: install software that supports Protocol 15.  In general, installing that software is quick and easy, and once you do, you should be back up and running in no time.”

Stellar has the vision to make sending money as easy and fast as sending emails. Every of its major step points towards that direction. There is no doubt that it will achieve its goal in no time.