Stellar’s Soroban Mainnet Set to Launch on January 30th, Promises Game-Changing Upgrades

• Stellar (XLM) has been trading sideways and is 19% below its highest point this year, but an upcoming upgrade could inject new life into the token.
• The Soroban upgrade will go live on the Stellar mainnet in a few days, four months after it launched on a testnet, introducing smart contracts to the network and priming it to compete with Ethereum.

The Stellar ecosystem is set to undergo its biggest protocol upgrade in a few days when the Soroban smart contracts platform makes its debut on the mainnet, introducing a new era of smart contracts and powerful decentralized applications on the network.

Soroban is a smart contracts platform based on Rust that’s built for scale and integrates seamlessly with the Stellar blockchain. It provides a developer-friendly environment with its plug-and-play SDKs and local sandboxes. An optimized fee model and multi-core scaling ensure any app built on Soroban can scale to serve billions, while its integration with Stellar offers access to global on and off-ramps.

Soroban launched on the testnet in September, and in mid-December, the team behind it successfully upgraded and reset it. On Tuesday, January 30, the upgrade will launch on the Stellar mainnet.

can’t lie we’re feeling super hyped about smart contracts coming to Stellar. 5 more days until the vote bringing Soroban to Stellar Mainnet ✨

— Stellar (@StellarOrg) January 25, 2024

The march towards the Soroban mainnet launch hasn’t been without its obstacles. On Thursday, the Stellar Development Foundation revealed that developers had discovered a bug in Stellar Core v20.1.0 that could affect the dApps that will leverage fee bumps for Soroban transactions.

SDF announced that it’s up to the node validators to decide whether they vote to delay the upgrade as the developers fix the issues or continue with the upgrade as planned.

“Because this is a bug with limited impact that can be mitigated through network settings and adherence to best practices, we, the Stellar Development Foundation, in our capacity as a validator, have decided we are comfortable continuing with the Protocol 20 upgrade vote on January 30 as planned,” SDF revealed.

The foundation believes the bug poses a low risk through the initial Soroban phases. dApps that follow the recommended best practices can also protect themselves from harm, it added.

The ecosystem is excited about Soroban, with many believing it could be the upgrade that makes Stellar a real Ethereum competitor. According to SDF CEO Denelle Dixon, the upgrade will be the basis of a more inclusive future.

She stated:

Firm in my belief: Smart contracts go beyond code; they’re the foundation to a more inclusive future, where tech, not intermediaries, upholds agreements. Less than a week until the vote brings Soroban to Stellar Mainnet—thrilled about it.

What Will Soroban Mean for Stellar (XLM)?

Despite the ecosystem’s most significant upgrade being a few days away, Stellar’s XLM token has yet to react to the news. XLM trades at $0.1135 at press time, a range it has been bound in for the past three weeks.

XLM’s volume stood at $62 million in the past day, a slight dip in that time. The volume greatly contrasts its market cap, which stands at $3.2 billion, ranking 25th globally.

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