Stellar (XLM) Plans to Delay Its Long-Awaited Major Update: Here’s Why

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the organization that supports the Stellar (XLM) blockchain ecosystem, has suggested a delay in the highly anticipated update of the Stellar blockchain.

The update, which aims to add Ethereum-style smart contracts, was originally planned for January 30. However, a bug discovered in the Stellar Core v20.1.0 software on January 25 caused the target date to be reconsidered.

This bug, which could potentially affect applications and services in the new “Soroban” smart contract transactions with the implementation of the update, was initially evaluated by SDG officials as posing “very little risk”. This evaluation was based on a plan to roll out the update in phases.

However, after “strong feedback” from the developer community, the foundation plans to “neutralize” its own validators to prevent them from voting on updating the network on the originally planned date. Other validators may still choose to proceed with the “Protocol 20” upgrade.

A fix for the bug is expected to be available within the next two weeks. If the update is delayed, the foundation will then “coordinate to determine a future voting date.”

One of the oldest blockchains, Stellar was created in 2014 as a fork of the Ripple protocol. The project is being developed to add the programmability that Ethereum and its “smart contracts” are famous for. Investors may be speculating on whether this update will inject new energy into the project’s native XLM tokens.

In an official announcement SDF stated:

On January 25, 2024, we notified the ecosystem of a bug discovered in Stellar Core v20.1.0 that could impact applications and services that use fee increases for Soroban transactions if and when the Mainnet is updated to Protocol 20. We have stated that we (the ecosystem and specifically the network validators) have a choice to continue or postpone the Protocol 20 upgrade vote on January 30th.

At SDF, we have spent time on the bug, seen its potential impacts, and determined that the bug poses little risk given the phased rollout plan combined with the implementation of best practices. But we are not a single ecosystem. Updating the network isn’t something SDF does alone, and we’ve opened threads in the Stellar Dev Discord and on our developer mailing list to inform the decision on whether to move forward given the bug, encouraging the ecosystem to weigh in. Ultimately, the strong feedback and debate surrounding this election led us to change our approach.”

*This is not investment advice.