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Tomer Weller, VP tech strategy at Stellar Lumens expressed: Smart Contracts are coming to Stellar.
As part of our 2022 strategy, SDF is committing to support the development of smart contracts on Stellar. Why?
Stellar enables equitable access to the financial system. DeFi is becoming a major part of that system. DeFi isn’t new to Stellar. It’s been core to the protocol with a built in DEX from the get go (before “DEX” was popularized), and AMM functionality became available in ‘21.
Now, we’re taking DeFi on Stellar to the next level. Smart contracts will lower the barrier of entry and allow developers to build new trust-minimized functionality without protocol changes.
For users, DeFi on Stellar means direct access to a global network of on and off-ramps. The latest player to join, MoneyGram, will provide crypto->cash conversions in 300,000(!) locations around the world.
What? We’re exploring various options for smart contracting languages and VMs, both existing and developing our own. Our main considerations are: safety, scalability, & equitable access. There’s nothing off-the-shelf that fits the bill, but we’re learning a lot from existing networks, both what works and what doesn’t. We’ll consult the ecosystem as we make progress.
Safety? We want to provide a robust toolset for developers to ensure that their contracts work as intended and minimize the number of footguns. We’ll also start a grant program dedicated to auditing smart contracts.
Scalability? We want to foster smart contracts that are built from the ground up for parallelism. There is only so much performance you can squeeze from smart contracts that are designed to handle one tx at a time.
Equitable access? With smart contracts, we’ll see more use cases on Stellar that give more access to the digital economy. It’s important to keep our eyes on the ball and find the right governance structure to prioritize transactions that are close to the network’s mission.
When? We’re aiming for a feature-complete test network by the end of 2022. Ultimately, the ecosystem will decide if and when to turn on smart contracts on Stellar. Join us tmrw with your questions.
Community Reaction: This will be a game changer to DeFi on Stellar! I’m very excited for this. I look forward to hearing more tomorrow during the Twitter spaces. Community is very happy to see all these new developments on the network.
This is amazing news for the entire Stellar ecosystem and the financial crypto scene as a whole.
