Stellar Ecosystem Map 2026: Wallets, DeFi, RWA, Payments

The Stellar ecosystem at a glance

DeFi rows are ordered by DefiLlama TVL on Stellar and RWA rows by rwa.xyz value, both as of 9 October 2026. Other groups are alphabetical. WhaleHub, which publishes this article, is included under DeFi in its TVL position.

Project	Type	Best for	Size / status
Wallets
Albedo	Web signer	Signing dApp transactions in the browser	Live
Beans	Payments app	Remittances, MoneyGram cash-out	Live
Decaf	Payments app	Holding USDC, cash ramps	Live
Freighter	Browser extension	Soroban dApps on desktop	Live
Hana	Multichain wallet	Users on several chains	Live
LOBSTR	Mobile and web wallet	All-round use, swaps	Live
Vesseo (formerly Vibrant)	USDC wallet	Dollar savings, mainly Argentina	Live, renamed
DeFi (by TVL)
Blend	Lending	Supplying and borrowing XLM, USDC	$146.6M
Stellar DeFi Hub	Curated vaults	Hands-off XLM, USDC, PYUSD yield	$55.8M
Aquarius	AMM + rewards	Swaps, LP rewards, ICE voting	$38.0M
Upshift / Gami Labs	Curated vault	USDC yield	$29.0M
DeFindex	Vault infrastructure	Yield inside wallets and apps	$19.6M
Sushi	Concentrated-liquidity DEX	Ranged LPs on stable pairs	$15.1M
Templar	Lending	Borrowing against RWAs	$12.1M
Soroswap	DEX + aggregator	Routing across venues	$1.2M
XOXNO Lending	Lending	Borrowing against LP tokens	$0.13M
Phoenix	DEX	Small AMM pools	$0.05M
WhaleHub	Liquid staking + vaults	Staking AQUA, auto-compounding LPs	$15K
Oracles and bridges
Axelar	Bridge / messaging	Interchain tokens	Live since Feb 2026
Band, Pyth, RedStone	Oracles	Alternative and RWA price feeds	Live
Chainlink	Oracle	Major-asset price feeds	Live since 29 Sep 2026
Circle CCTP	Native USDC bridge	Moving USDC between chains	Live
Reflector	Oracle	Stellar-native SEP-40 feeds	Live since Mar 2024
Tokenised assets (by value)
Spiko	Money-market funds	Euro and dollar money-market funds	$1.8B
Franklin Templeton Benji	Money-market fund	US government MMF	$616.2M
Ondo USDY	Yield-bearing note	Dollar yield token	$537.2M
WisdomTree	Tokenised funds	Fund shares on-chain	$40.3M
Centrifuge deRWA	Tokenised funds	DeFi-usable RWA tokens	$29.5M
Etherfuse Stablebonds	Tokenised government bonds	CETES, USTRY	Live
Stablecoins and payments
Circle USDC and EURC	Stablecoins	Dollar and euro settlement	USDC $379.1M
MoneyGram Ramps	Cash ramp	Cash to USDC and back	Live since 2022
PayPal USD (PYUSD)	Stablecoin	PayPal-issued dollars	Live since Sep 2025
Airtm, Arf, Bitso, Settle Network, Tempo	Payments and anchors	Corridors and business payouts	Live
Explorers and tools
StellarExpert, Stellarchain.io, Stellar Lab	Explorers / dev tools	Checking accounts, assets, transactions	Live

The Stellar ecosystem by the numbers (October 2026)

On 9 October 2026, DefiLlama put Stellar's DeFi TVL at $250.0M across 42 listed protocols and its USD stablecoin supply at $942.9M. rwa.xyz counted $3.58B of distributed tokenised assets across 82 products and 23,199 holders. Stellar's DEXs handled $96.9M of volume over the previous 30 days.

• DeFi growth: up from $145.3M a year earlier, per DefiLlama's chain history. See Stellar DeFi TVL in 2026 for the trend and the August dip.
• Concentration: Blend Pools V2 alone is $146.6M, more than half of the total. Aquarius handled $96.92M of the $96.94M of 30-day DEX volume.
• Stablecoins: DefiLlama's $942.9M includes $537.1M of Ondo's USDY, which it classes as a stablecoin, and $379.1M of USDC. rwa.xyz reports $431.1M. Cite each with its source.
• Tokenised assets: $3.58B distributed, up 7.2% in 30 days, with $636M of transfer volume over that period, per rwa.xyz.
• Network: Protocol 29, activated on mainnet on 1 October 2026; see Stellar's 2026 upgrades.

How to choose where to start

• You are new and want a wallet: LOBSTR or Freighter, then read our LOBSTR guide.
• You want yield on USDC or XLM: Blend directly, or a curated vault on top of it. Start with USDC yield on Stellar.
• You want to trade or provide liquidity: Aquarius, with Soroswap for routing; see Aquarius vs Soroswap.
• You want tokenised Treasuries or funds: check eligibility first; most are restricted by jurisdiction. See the best RWA platforms on Stellar.
• You need to get cash in or out: MoneyGram Ramps or a local anchor; see MoneyGram Ramps.

Wallets — where users hold keys

Stellar wallets split into general-purpose wallets that handle trustlines, swaps and Soroban dApps, and payment apps built around holding USDC and cashing out. All of the wallets below were live in October 2026; one well-known name, Vibrant, now operates as Vesseo.

• LOBSTR: mobile and web wallet with built-in swaps across the Stellar DEX and Aquarius, plus a browser signer extension and WalletConnect for dApps. Full walkthrough: LOBSTR wallet guide.
• Freighter: a browser-extension wallet and the default signer for many Soroban dApps; there is also Freighter Mobile.
• Albedo: a web-based signer, listed in Stellar's docs among wallets that support Soroban authorisation signing.
• Hana: a multichain wallet with Stellar and Soroban support, funded through the Stellar Community Fund.
• Decaf, Beans and Vesseo: self-custodial payment apps. Decaf and Vesseo are featured on MoneyGram's Ramps site; Beans offers MoneyGram cash-out; Vesseo, formerly Vibrant, is run by an SDF subsidiary and focuses on Argentina.

Comparisons, security notes and passkey options are in the best Stellar wallets and passkey smart wallets.

DeFi — lending, DEXs and vaults

Stellar DeFi is small and concentrated: Blend's lending pools hold more than half the TVL, Aquarius does nearly all the DEX volume, and a set of curated vaults sits on top of both. Several vault figures overlap, because vault deposits are also counted inside the protocols they use.

• Blend ($146.6M): isolated lending pools with a first-loss backstop. Two 2026 incidents, the YieldBlox oracle manipulation and the Comet backstop exploit, are covered in Blend's 2026 incidents; mechanics in what is Blend.
• Stellar DeFi Hub ($55.8M): Sentora-curated vaults for XLM, USDC and PYUSD, operated by Ultra Stellar, live since July 2026.
• Aquarius ($38.0M): Stellar's main AMM, with AQUA rewards directed by ICE votes. See the Aquarius AMM explained.
• Upshift / Gami Labs ($29.0M): the earnUSDC vault, launched on Stellar in June 2026. DefiLlama lists the same money under both names.
• DeFindex ($19.6M): vault infrastructure for wallets and fintech apps; see DeFindex explained.
• Sushi ($15.1M): concentrated-liquidity pools, mostly stablecoin and RWA pairs.
• Templar ($12.1M): cross-chain lending that added RWA collateral (CETES, USTRY and Centrifuge tokens) in April 2026.
• Soroswap ($1.2M): AMM plus an aggregator that routes across venues; see Soroswap explained.
• XOXNO Lending ($0.13M) and Phoenix ($0.05M): small but live. XOXNO accepts Aquarius LP tokens as collateral; see XOXNO Lending.
• WhaleHub ($15K): the publisher of this article. Stakes AQUA for BLUB, a floating liquid staking receipt, aggregates ICE voting power and runs auto-compounding Aquarius LP vaults.

DefiLlama also counts Stellar's protocol-level order book ($16.2M) and classic AMM pools ($13.1M). The ranked comparison is in the best DeFi platforms on Stellar.

Oracles and bridges

Five price oracles now publish on Stellar: Reflector, the native SEP-40 oracle; RedStone, strong on RWA feeds; Band; Pyth; and Chainlink, live since 29 September 2026. For cross-chain movement, Circle's CCTP moves native USDC and Axelar has run its interchain token service on Stellar since February 2026.

• Reflector: seven-node oracle with five-minute prices; see what is Reflector.
• Chainlink: nine Data Feeds on one proxy contract; see Chainlink on Stellar.
• RedStone, Band, Pyth: compared in oracles on Stellar.
• Circle CCTP: burns USDC on one chain and mints it on another, so no wrapped token is involved; see bridging USDC to Stellar.
• Axelar: general cross-chain messaging and token transfers, live on Stellar since 16 February 2026 per Axelar.

Tokenised assets — funds, notes and bonds

Stellar's tokenised-asset market is larger than its DeFi: rwa.xyz counted $3.58B distributed on 9 October 2026, led by Spiko's money-market funds ($1.8B), Franklin Templeton's Benji ($616.2M) and Ondo ($537.2M). Most of these are permissioned products with investor restrictions.

• Spiko ($1.8B): tokenised money-market funds (EUTBL, USTBL), with Stellar among its issuance chains.
• Franklin Templeton Benji ($616.2M): the US government money-market fund that has used Stellar as a system of record since 2021; see Benji on Stellar.
• Ondo USDY ($537.2M): a yield-bearing dollar note, live on Stellar since 17 September 2025.
• WisdomTree ($40.3M): tokenised funds that list Stellar among their chains, rebranded as WisdomTree Onchain on 29 September 2026.
• Centrifuge deRWA ($29.5M): tokens such as deJTRSY and deJAAA designed to be used in DeFi.
• Etherfuse Stablebonds: tokenised government bonds such as CETES and USTRY; see Etherfuse Stablebonds.

rwa.xyz also lists Realiz ($500.0M) and NYALA ($26.9M) on Stellar. The broader picture is in RWA tokenisation on Stellar and tokenised money-market funds.

Stablecoins and payments

Payments are where Stellar started. Circle's USDC ($379.1M on Stellar, per DefiLlama) and EURC, PayPal's PYUSD, and MoneyGram's cash ramps are the best-known pieces; a set of regional anchors and payout firms connect them to local currencies.

• Circle USDC and EURC: USDC has been on Stellar since 2021 and EURC since 26 September 2023. See stablecoins on Stellar.
• PayPal USD (PYUSD): live on Stellar since 18 September 2025, issued by Paxos.
• MoneyGram Ramps: cash to USDC and back at MoneyGram locations; see MoneyGram Ramps on Stellar. MoneyGram also issues its own stablecoin, MGUSD, on Stellar inside its app.
• Settle Network: SEP-6 and SEP-24 anchor issuing the ARST and BRLT stablecoins.
• Airtm: USDC payouts on Stellar via Bridge since March 2024. Arf: USDC credit lines for licensed payment institutions. Bitso: supports USDC on Stellar. Tempo: a European payment provider using Stellar for Europe–Africa transfers.

How these businesses plug into wallets is explained in Stellar anchors explained.

Explorers and tools

Three tools cover most needs: StellarExpert for accounts, assets and contracts; Stellarchain.io as a second explorer; and Stellar Lab, SDF's tool for building, signing and inspecting transactions. All were live in October 2026.

Use an explorer to check what a wallet does not show: an asset's issuer and home domain, the operations inside a transaction, or a contract's code. The habit pays off: asset codes are not unique on Stellar, and the issuer is what identifies a token. See how assets are issued on Stellar.

What we left out, and why

• Slender: site unreachable and $96 of TVL on DefiLlama.
• Hoops: a waitlist and preview only.
• Comet: its domain is for sale and it is not on DefiLlama, although Comet pools have held Blend's backstop deposits; status unclear.
• Meridian Pay: a demo wallet for Meridian 2025 attendees, not a general product.
• Lumenswap, Coins.ph, Flutterwave, FxDAO, DIA: we could not confirm current Stellar activity (FxDAO shows $0 TVL; DIA is testnet only).

How these fit together

The layers stack cleanly. Anchors and MoneyGram bring money on-chain as USDC and other stablecoins; wallets hold it; Blend, Aquarius and the vaults put it to work; oracles price it; tokenised funds give it something regulated to sit in; bridges move it elsewhere. The weak point is depth: much of DeFi rests on one lending protocol and one DEX, so a single incident moves the whole picture. The strong point is the payments and RWA base, which is large relative to the DeFi built on it.

The takeaway

Stellar's ecosystem is narrower than the largest smart-contract chains and more focused: stablecoins, cash ramps, tokenised funds and a compact DeFi layer. Start with a wallet, check every asset's issuer, read the deep-dive for any protocol before depositing, and expect this map to change, because several names on last year's lists are no longer here.

Sources: DefiLlama API (protocols, v2/chains, historicalChainTvl, overview/dexs, stablecoins and stablecoinchains), 9 Oct 2026; rwa.xyz Stellar network page and platform table, 9 Oct 2026; project websites and apps checked 9 Oct 2026; developers.stellar.org (oracle providers, x402 wallet support, software versions); Ondo, "USDY is now live on Stellar"; Circle pressroom (EURC on Stellar); stellar.org, "Circle CCTP is live on Stellar"; Axelar blog; MoneyGram press releases and Ramps site; Google Play listing for Vesseo.