The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) leadership has shown a decisive push to mainstream finance for the rest of 2025, suggesting that “some of the biggest names in payments and asset management” will be live on the network in the coming weeks and months.
Working with SDF CEO Denelle Dixon, José Fernández Da Ponte joined SDF in mid-July and is now president and chief growth officer.
The biggest name for payment is a star
“We are a blockchain for large financial services,” Fernández Da Ponte added:
He highlighted his claims in growth figures for the Chain economy. “Last year, watching TVL and Defi, it totally doubled TVL. Executives praised the wallets and protocols that stem from the community, and continued their work on “piping” with open source “piping” as a catalyst for that momentum.
Dixon positioned the first half of 2025 as “laying the foundation,” saying the back half must provide “big acceleration” for the tech side, singled out Protocol 23, describing the star as “stronger, faster and easier for developers to live.”
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She also flagged expansions on the Stablecoin universe's network. “Stellar's Pyusd has been announced, new assets are coming, and other assets continue to expand,” flagging tangible use wins from the wallet program, which converted one-time signups into weekly activities. These statements will be tracked on the 2025 SDF public roadmap and recruitment goals. This highlights real-world payments, defi depth, and a push to top-notch TVL rankings.
Payments-Stablecoin Pillar is at the heart of that strategy. In June, PayPal announced plans to pending regulatory approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services to create Pyusd, a stable dollar coin available on the star network. The move will add another well-known publisher to Stellar's rails, expanding the distribution of Pyusd beyond its current venue. Neither PayPal nor SDF offers solid mainnet dates, but businesses have publicly repeated their intentions over the summer.
On the protocol side, Stellar's “Whisk” release, Protocol 23-, approves the second half of the execution plan. The SDF document covers a package of eight core advancement proposals, including parallelized processing, unified events, improved fees and throughput, and developer improvements for Soloban Smart Contracts.
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SDF scheduled testnet and governance milestones over the summer and set up a mainnet voting in early September. The intention is simple. With increased performance and ergonomics, meeting the system-grade expectations of payment processors and asset managers, it is currently circling the network.
The organization will attempt to convert its pipeline into concrete announcements this week at Meridian (SDF's flagship annual conference) at Meridian, held in Rio de Janeiro from September 17-18. When it comes to builders, policy voices, and corporate recruits on-site, the timing of the event is neatly in line with leadership's “together weeks” guidance, but neither Dixon nor Fernandez-Da Ponte will nominate any particular partner.
Does XLM price respond?
For investors asking if XLM would respond, the market has so far treated integrated Drumbeat as a “Show-Me” story. As of September 16th, XLM is trading nearly $0.379. XLM remains capped in a mid-summer of $0.52, where the Bulls claim to demand marquee partner Go Live, visible PYUSD settlement flows, or wider macro-driven gatherings across the crypto market.
Crypto Analyst Crypto Patel (@cryptopatel) was shared via X on September 15th: “Demand Zone Test – XLM Bulls are ready for charging. This setup will be reproduced in bullish order zone → demand area.
At the time of pressing, the XLM traded for $0.378.
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