The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has announced the deployment of smart contracts on the Stellar Network following the arrival of Soroban smart contracts on its mainnet.
The smart contracts make their debut on the Stellar mainnet after spending 16 months on the testnet.
Smart Contracts On Stellar
The Stellar blockchain has gone ahead with the implementation of Protocol 20, which sees smart contracts finally arrive on the Stellar network. The Stellar Foundation has claimed that implementing smart contracts will usher in a new era for its tech stack. The Stellar Foundation announced the news in a blog post published on the 20th of February, stating that Stellar validators successfully introduced Protocol 20, enabling smart contract capabilities and the phased rollout of its Soroban smart contract platform.
“Stellar’s Protocol 20 is officially live, bringing smart contracts to Stellar Mainnet! We’ve laid the groundwork, hitting major milestones along the way, but this is just the beginning. On the 20th of February, Stellar network validators voted to upgrade Mainnet to Protocol 20, kicking off a new era for the Stellar smart contracts tech stack, which delivers a secure, batteries-included developer experience built to scale and for real-world use.”
An email from the Stellar team said that validators will gradually increase the limits for Soraban transactions and slowly build it to full capacity.
“Gradually, validators plan to increase limits for Soroban transactions, building up to full capacity. As the increases happen and we enter phase 1, the 160-plus builders and projects already building on testnet will begin to deploy on mainnet. Later, once projects are deployed, the network has been stress-tested, and the ecosystem is satisfied, dApps will launch for all to use.”
User-Friendly Developer Experience
Stellar’s smart contracts aim to provide a more developer-friendly experience, especially for those using the Rust and WASM (WebAssembly) languages. Soroban, Stellar’s smart contract platform, was first deployed on the Stellar testnet in October 2022 and uses several features for better scalability, such as predictable fees and independent resource pricing.
Stellar also wrote that its smart contract ecosystem will enable the development of new decentralized applications (dApps) and allow builders to construct novel protocols and other apps on the network.
Several Delays
The smart contract mainnet upgrade on Stellar was plagued with delays after the Stellar Development Foundation found a bug in Stellar Core in January. The Stellar team said at the time that the bug posed little risk but could impact applications and functioning once the smart contract platform was rolled out. In October 2022, the Stellar Development Foundation also launched a $100 million funding initiative to encourage developers to start building on the Soroban platform.
The Stellar Development Foundation is a nonprofit organization responsible for the development of the Stellar network. It and the Stellar community have been developing smart contract functionality for the past two years.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.