At Meridian, Stellar makes the case that utility should drive the network

Over the two-day duration of the summit, the SDF is hosting a series of sessions aimed at providing a roadmap for banks, asset managers, and global payments companies. The core message delivered by the Foundation’s leadership is clear: the era of speculative growth is giving way to a "utility era," where the success of the Stellar blockchain will be measured not by the number of dormant wallets, but by the tangible volume of payments and the functional movement of tokenized capital.

The Shift to Utility: A New Metric for Blockchain Success

The SDF, the nonprofit entity tasked with the stewardship of the Stellar network, is spearheading an initiative to fundamentally reconsider the network’s tokenomics. Chief Product Officer Tomer Weller has been instrumental in proposing a potential rewards mechanism, which could be funded directly from the network’s existing fee pool. The goal is to incentivize activity that directly correlates with increased utility.

José Fernández da Ponte, president and chief growth officer at the SDF, emphasized during the opening keynote that the foundation is moving away from vanity metrics. "A tokenized money market fund that sits in a wallet is good, but it is not great," he stated. For the SDF, the true indicator of progress is the velocity of money—how often tokenized assets are being used as collateral for lending, margin trading, and repurchase agreements.

This shift is underscored by the development of "Project Thruput," a technical experiment currently running on FutureNet, Stellar’s test network. Project Thruput is designed to dramatically increase transaction capacity by allowing the network to scale horizontally as more computing power is added. Initial testing results reported by the SDF—though not yet verified by independent third parties—suggest that a single validator was able to reach a throughput of 7.02 million payments per second across eight machines. While this represents a controlled environment, it highlights the technical ambition of the foundation to compete with legacy high-frequency financial infrastructure.

The Institutional Landscape: Who is Building on Stellar?

The timing of Meridian 2026 coincides with a wave of institutional announcements that bolster the SDF’s narrative. The most prominent of these is the integration of Stellar by Securitize, the prominent digital asset securities firm. By adding Stellar to its roster of supported chains—joining Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche—Securitize is betting on the network’s maturity. Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, noted that Stellar currently hosts the fourth-largest ecosystem for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), a testament to the platform’s focus on compliance and financial standards.

Further evidence of institutional traction comes from Janus Henderson and Centrifuge, who recently announced JQQQ. This Nasdaq-100 tracking fund is aimed at non-U.S. professional investors and is uniquely launching on the Stellar blockchain. With a minimum investment threshold of $100,000, the fund represents a sophisticated entry into the tokenized equity space. Similarly, Archax has introduced the €GOVY token, a euro-denominated perpetual tokenized T-bill product, and has partnered with Pontoro to create a liquidity pool that blends money market assets with private fund interests. The SDF has confirmed that it has made strategic investments in both Archax and Pontoro, signaling a deep commitment to the development of these financial instruments.

Spiko, a French fintech firm, provides a concrete example of this institutional utility in practice. The company reports that it currently manages $3 billion in assets, primarily in overnight money market funds on Stellar, with a growth rate exceeding 15 percent month-over-month for the past two years. Notably, approximately 90 percent of these assets are held by institutional players, including corporations, nonprofits, venture capital firms, and public entities. Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, CEO of Spiko, highlighted that institutional treasurers and CFOs are increasingly prioritizing transparency, favoring the public nature of the Stellar blockchain over the "black box" architecture of traditional financial products.

U.S. Bank has also made significant strides, utilizing its dollar-backed token, USBDC, on the Stellar network to facilitate cross-border value movement between its North American and European entities—a clear demonstration of blockchain’s ability to streamline internal corporate treasury operations.

Strategic Considerations: Compliance and Foresight

A recurring theme throughout the Lisbon event is the necessity for institutional participants to align their blockchain strategies with existing regulatory frameworks. Fernández da Ponte articulated a three-pronged criteria for institutions selecting a network: specialized design for financial services, a robust ecosystem of developers and liquidity, and a proactive, collaborative stance toward regulators. "If you work in financial services, you need to love your regulator," he stated, reinforcing the idea that long-term viability in the digital asset space is predicated on regulatory cooperation.

This sentiment was echoed by Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital. Drawing a parallel to the evolution of consumer electronics, Scaramucci characterized the transition to blockchain-based finance as the equivalent of "shooting the iPod"—a reference to Steve Jobs’ decision to introduce the iPhone, effectively cannibalizing his own successful product to innovate for the future. For Scaramucci, the institutional tipping point will arrive when the top 10 global stocks are natively issued and traded as tokenized assets. He urged banks and asset managers to exercise the necessary foresight and institutional will to make difficult, forward-looking decisions today.

A Chronology of Progress

The momentum seen at Meridian 2026 is the result of several years of incremental development and strategic positioning:

• 2022-2023: The SDF increases its focus on the "Stellar Aid Assist" and "Stellar Disbursement Platform" programs, proving the network’s utility for cross-border humanitarian aid and stablecoin-based payments.
• Early 2024: Increased focus on the "State of the Network" reports, showing a shift in focus toward high-value transactions and stablecoin integration.
• October 2024: A series of major announcements precedes the Meridian event, including the Janus Henderson/Centrifuge partnership and the filing of SEC Form D documents for tokenized pools, signaling a transition from pilot programs to live financial offerings.
• November 2026: Meridian 2026 opens in Lisbon, with a formal announcement of the "Utility Era" as the next phase of the network’s maturity.

Implications and Future Outlook

The implications of the developments discussed at Meridian 2026 are far-reaching. By prioritizing "distribution first" over the mere launch of tokenized assets, firms like Spiko and the SDF are challenging the industry to prove the value of blockchain beyond hype. The industry is effectively moving away from the "Fear of Missing Out" (FOMO) that characterized previous market cycles toward a more methodical, revenue-focused approach.

As the industry looks toward day two of the conference, which features key representatives from U.S. Bank and Centrifuge, the focus will likely shift to the technical and legal barriers still facing the integration of tokenized assets into mainstream portfolios. The challenge for the SDF in the coming year will be to prove that the performance seen in Project Thruput can be reliably replicated in a decentralized, production-grade environment.

Furthermore, the integration of traditional financial giants like U.S. Bank and investment managers like Janus Henderson suggests that the infrastructure for a tokenized financial system is being built in the open. As regulatory clarity improves globally—particularly in the EU with the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation and in the U.S. through evolving SEC and CFTC guidance—the Stellar network’s emphasis on compliance-ready, high-throughput architecture may position it as a primary settlement layer for the next generation of global capital markets.

The success of this phase will ultimately depend on the ability of the SDF to bridge the gap between legacy institutional practices and the efficiency of blockchain. If the current trajectory holds, the "utility era" may prove to be the defining chapter in the history of the Stellar network, marking the moment when blockchain ceased to be an experimental tool and became a standard component of institutional financial architecture.