Stellar activated Protocol 28 on September 17 following a scheduled mainnet upgrade vote, introducing tools designed to streamline smart-contract deployments and improve network consensus. The upgrade coincides with the blockchain reaching a sustained throughput record of 211 transactions per second across 100 consecutive blocks.
The protocol's technical improvements address specific challenges in contract management and network performance. CAP-85 enables developers to move groups of Soroban smart contracts to updated code through a single atomic operation, narrowing the window where contracts run mixed versions during security fixes or migrations. CAP-86 introduces sparse-map functions that allow developers to modify data structures stored by active contracts without requiring immediate conformity to new schemas.
Protocol 28 also includes consensus changes through CAP-83, which lets validators progress through consensus stages without waiting for complete transaction sets and provides mechanisms to discard late or invalid sets. The network is gradually rolling out parallel transaction-set downloading, and the upgrade builds infrastructure to support higher loads as this feature expands.
Adoption of the new contract features remains optional for existing Soroban applications and developers, while consensus improvements continue being deployed across the network.
Growing Financial Activity on Stellar
The protocol activation arrives as Stellar handles expanding activity across multiple financial segments. Stablecoin supply on the network has grown to nearly $884 million over the past year, according to DeFiLlama data. Decentralized finance total value locked reached approximately $319 million in August before settling near $294 million.
Tokenized real-world assets represent a larger portion of the network's activity. Token Terminal ranks Stellar as the third-largest blockchain by RWA market capitalization at approximately $3.3 billion, up $149.4 million over the prior 30 days.
The expansion of financial activity on Stellar increases the operational importance of contract upgrades, particularly for applications managing larger pools of tokenized assets that require code patches or data structure changes.
