Stellar Q3 2025 Report: Scaling What Works, Growing Stronger
Stellar’s Q3 2025: Record Growth in Utility, Scale, and Adoption
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) released its Q3 2025 quarterly report, titled “Scaling what works. Growing stronger.” Published on October 31, 2025, by Mel Higgins, the report highlights measurable progress in real-world adoption, developer momentum, and institutional trust. Stellar processed over 1 billion operations this quarter, a 70% increase QoQ, with 99.99% uptime and average ledger close of 5.76 seconds. Transaction fees remained ultra-low at $0.00055 per operation. According to Chainspect, Stellar now ranks #4 globally in actual network usage. For users, this means faster, cheaper, and more reliable blockchain performance than ever. As SDF emphasizes, Stellar proves open networks can deliver institutional-grade trust at scale.
Developer Surge: 37% YTD Growth, 8x Industry Average
Stellar’s developer ecosystem is thriving. Full-time developers grew 37% year-to-date, nearly eight times the industry average. Engagement in hackathons and activations jumped 70% QoQ. Smart contract activity hit an all-time high of 1 million invocations per day, up 700% QoQ. New Ambassadors expanded across LATAM and APAC. Developers choose Stellar for its practicality: high performance, proven tools, and real-world focus. The upcoming Whisk upgrade, live in September, introduced parallel execution, faster block times, and unified token events. Protocol 25 will add zk-ready cryptography, enabling privacy-enabled, compliance-forward applications. As SDF notes, “Privacy is the bridge to trust, configurable, auditable, and built for scale.”
RWAs and DeFi: $5.4B in Cross-Border Payments, $144M TVL
Stellar solidified its leadership in real-world assets (RWAs). RWA market cap reached $562M, up 14% QoQ, with total supply up 20%. Cross-border RWA payments hit a record $5.4B, up 27% QoQ. Major issuers like Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, Ondo, Centrifuge, and Mercado Bitcoin expanded their footprint. DeFi mirrored this momentum: TVL surged 71% to $144M, a 3.6× increase year-over-year. Projects like Blend, Beans, and Etherfuse democratize yield and credit. Key integrations, LayerZero, NEAR Intents, Centrifuge deRWA, and Ondo USDY, connected Stellar to 95+ networks, unlocking multichain liquidity. For users, this means RWAs like tokenized Treasuries (94.8% of Stellar’s RWA market) are now DeFi-ready.
Institutional Milestones: Visa, PayPal, MoneyGram, and Global Aid
Q3 delivered enterprise wins. Visa added Stellar to its stablecoin settlement network. MoneyGram launched its next-gen wallet in Colombia using USDC on Stellar. PayPal’s PYUSD went live on Stellar, extending regulated digital dollars to 400M accounts and 35M merchants worldwide. Through the Stellar Disbursement Platform, partners like GIZ, UNDP, and the World Food Programme processed $4.2M YTD, up 50% QoQ. These integrations prove Stellar bridges global finance and open tech. As Raja Chakravorti, SDF CBO, said, “Stellar has facilitated billions in payments. True adoption demands trust, interoperability, and clear standards.”
Meridian 2025: 1,000+ Attendees, 425K XLM Transacted
At Meridian 2025 in Rio, over 1,000 attendees from 65 countries and 229 companies gathered. They transacted 425,000 XLM via Meridian Pay. The event showcased Stellar’s real-world momentum. Looking ahead, Meridian 2026 will be held at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The message is clear: Stellar is scaling what works, and growing stronger. For users ready to dive in, platforms like Lumexo make trading $XLM, USDC, and tokenized assets seamless with low fees and fast execution.