Stellar’s Smart Contracts Debut: Protocol 20 Upgrade Set for Feb. 20

• Stellar has teased February 20 as the date to activate its smart contract Soroban upgrade.
• With the upgrade, the protocol will seek to give close competition to Ethereum as a DeFi hub.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has announced in a post on X that the Protocol 20 upgrade, billed to introduce smart contracts to the Stellar blockchain as part of the “Soroban” project, is set for deployment on February 20. This eagerly anticipated upgrade aims to transform the Stellar network into a more versatile and developer-friendly ecosystem.

Stellar Protocol 20 Upgrade Rescheduled

Originally set for January 30, the upgrade encountered a temporary setback due to the discovery of a bug. The bug, identified in scenarios involving a Soroban transaction request leading to a fee-bumped refund, prompted a delay in the release. However, the SDF has swiftly addressed the issue, and outlined a timeline for the upgrade, assuring the community that the candidate release will be available on February 2.

The Foundation added that a stable release, testnet reset, and upgrade will be performed next week, February 6th. Thereafter, anyone who runs Stellar infrastructure will then have until February 20th to install the new version. Validators, if they choose to do so, will then cast their votes for Protocol 20 on that date.

3/ Here’s the timeline 🗓️:
▪️February 2: Core 20.2 Release Candidate
▪️February 6: Core 20.2 Stable Release and Testnet Reset + Upgrade
▪️February 20: Target Protocol 20 Upgrade Vote + Phase 0

— Stellar (@StellarOrg) January 30, 2024

Anticipation for Soroban runs high within the Stellar community, with many seeing it as a significant upgrade that could position Stellar as a credible competitor to Ethereum. Its features, including an optimized fee model and multi-core scaling, suggest that any application built on Soroban will have the capacity to scale to serve billions of users. This, coupled with its integration with the Stellar blockchain, provides access to global on and off-ramps, further enhancing its appeal to developers.

SDF CEO Denelle Dixon expressed her optimism about the upgrade, stating, “Smart contracts go beyond code; they’re the foundation to a more inclusive future, where tech, not intermediaries, upholds agreements.”

Market Response to the Stellar Smart Contract Upgrade

The forthcoming upgrade is seen as a pivotal moment for Stellar, not only in terms of technological advancements but also as a step toward a more inclusive and decentralized future. The introduction of smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain is expected to unlock a myriad of possibilities, enabling a wide range of decentralized applications to be built on the network.

Despite the impending upgrade, the market’s response has been relatively subdued, with Stellar’s native cryptocurrency, XLM, maintaining a stable trading price of around $0.1133, up by 0.7%. However, as of the time of writing, there is a notable increase in trading volume, reaching $72.5 million, up by 16% in the past 24 hours.

As the Stellar community awaits the Protocol 20 upgrade and the deployment of Soroban, the broader blockchain industry watches closely, anticipating the impact this move could have on smart contract platforms. The stage is set for a new chapter in Stellar’s journey, and all eyes will be on the network come February 20.

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