The Frank Templeton Stellar Foundation Collaboration
In April, the Stellar Foundation shared some exciting news – Franklin Templeton’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund was integrated into the Stellar network via the Benji Investments app. This announcement was noteworthy because Templeton became the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to adopt public blockchain technology for transactions and share ownership via the Stellar blockchain.
The fund’s transfer agent maintains the official record of share ownership by utilizing a proprietary system that integrates blockchain technology and currently leverages the Stellar blockchain network for all transaction activity.
The Tokenization Feature from Stellar Foundation
Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation, revealed that the Foundation’s network is intentionally designed and fine-tuned for asset tokenization. The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund is a prime example of the blockchain’s practicality, he said. Dixon also emphasized that the Stellar Foundation is committed to revolutionizing traditional financial products and processes, increasing market accessibility, and empowering a wider population.
The innovative investment strategy introduced by the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund is represented by a single BENJI token. The token enables holders to gain exposure to the fund via the mobile Benji Investments app. The Stellar Development Foundation recognizes the value and potential of these tokens as they play a crucial role in the expanding digital ecosystem.
Despite being a traditional financial institution, the ability to tokenize assets, facilitated by the Stellar Foundation, has enabled Templeton to connect the worlds of traditional finance and decentralized finance.
Additionally, through the Soroban Network, Stellar strives to establish itself as a reliable and robust smart contract platform in competition with Ethereum and Solana.
Soroban vs. Ethereum vs. Solana
Soroban, developed by the Stellar Foundation, has some distinct features that differentiate it from Ethereum and Solana. Ethereum utilizes the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) runtime environment and the Solidity programming language to build contracts. At the same time, Soroban uses the WebAssembly (WASM) runtime environment and supports a wider range of languages. Programming languages such as Rust, C, C++, Go, and AssemblyScript are some of the supported languages. Moreover, the smart contract is not limited to mainstream stablecoins like USDC, but also encompasses stablecoins denominated by other fiats.
Regarding Solana, both Soroban and Solana boast high transaction rates per second. However, the Stellar network has only experienced one network outage since its inception, contrary to the several outages Solana faced.
Stellar’s TVL Plummets
An analysis of Stellar’s Total Value Locked (TVL) as per DefiLlama seems to indicate a decline in value over the years. In fact, as of December 2021, the TVL was recorded at over $70 million. However, throughout 2022, a significant decrease in value was observed. At press time, the TVL stood at just $19 million.
Worth noting, however, that there has been evidence of an upward trend in the value locked in recent times. The same was evidenced by Stellar’s charts too.
