Ripple competitor Stellar (XLM) is announcing plans to roll out smart contracts later this year.
Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) ecosystem head Justin Rice says smart contracts will enable a new suite of products and services on Stellar.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to get there, but at SDF we’re committed to researching and shepherding the development of the code and creating community engagement around an implementation.
The goal is to have Stellar remain one of the most accessible networks for developers so they can deliver high quality and safe applications to their users, while also allowing it to adapt and respond to the competitive blockchain landscape.”
Smart contracts are coming to Stellar. pic.twitter.com/jwMnsvod5T
— Stellar (@StellarOrg) January 25, 2022
Stellar is an open network for storing and moving money. The project’s native token, XLM, is used as a bridge currency between two fiat currencies when sending money abroad. XLM is trading at $0.192945 at time of writing, down 2.37% in the past 24 hours.
Tomer Weller, the vice president of tech strategy at Stellar, outlines the rough timeline for smart contract implementation in a new tweet.
“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.”
In October, the SDF announced a new partnership with the payments giant MoneyGram to use the Stellar blockchain to facilitate cross-border payments.
MoneyGram had previously entered into a partnership with Ripple, a Stellar competitor, in June 2019 for foreign exchange settlements and cross-border payments.
However, the payments giant suspended its use of XRP payments this past February in the wake of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple.
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