Stellar (XLM) records a positive performance in 24-hours as the crypto market in general recovers from its sell-off. As of press time, XLM trades at $0.20 with a 4.8% profit in the last day.

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On January 25^th, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) Vice President of Technological Strategy Tomer Weller announced via Twitter the integration of smart contract on this network. With a tentative deployment date set by the end of 2022, this addition could transform XLM’s ecosystem and use cases.

As Weller clarified, the SDF aims for a “feature-complete test network” for that period. However, he believes “the ecosystem” most decide when to roll-out smart contract capabilities on Stellar. Weller will host a Twitter Space today at 12:00 Pacific Time (PT) to provide more details. Weller :

Stellar enables equitable access to the financial system. DeFi is becoming a major part of that system. DeFi isn’t new to Stellar. It’s been core to the protocol with a built in DEX from the get go (before “DEX” was popularized), and AMM functionality became available in ‘21.

The logical step of that development is to support the introduction smart contracts, Weller said, and take DeFi on Stellar to “the next level”. These capabilities could aid the network and its ecosystem to fulfill the vision of the SDF by lowering “the barrier of entry”. In addition, developers working on this network will be able to create products with “trust-minimized functionality. More importantly, Stellar will no longer have to implement major protocol changes to deploy a product, dApp, or decentralized service. Weller also claimed the SDF is currently looking at smart contracts programming languages and Virtual Machines (VMs). These could be developed by the SDF or they could use an existing programming language.

Who Will Benefit The Most From Smart Contracts On Stellar?

The non-profit organization will have three priorities when selecting a programming language, as Weller said: safety, scalability, and equitable access. At the moment, the VP for Tech Strategy believes there is not one “off-the-shelf that fits the bill”. In that sense, he claimed they are currently looking into existing networks and “learning a lot” to evaluate the components that “work”. The Stellar ecosystem will apparently have a voice at choosing this key element of its smart contract functionalities. Weller added:

For users, DeFi on Stellar means direct access to a global network of on and off-ramps. The latest player to join, MoneyGram, will provide crypto->cash conversions in 300,000(!) locations around the world.

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Users stand to be the most benefit from the potential integration with smart contracts. The SDF has also set out to provide developers with a “robust toolset” so that dApps on the network will be safe. In addition, the SDF will launch a grant program with the only objective of auditing smart contracts.