Stellar (XLM) SCF 7.0 Overhauls Grant System With AI Screening and Referral Rewards

The Stellar (XLM) Development Foundation has unveiled SCF 7.0, a significant restructuring of its community grant program that introduces AI-powered application screening and a financial incentive system for referrers who surface quality builder teams.

The revamped Stellar Community Fund replaces the previous open-application model with a tiered submission process. Builders can now signal interest at any time through the community fund portal, with eligible projects entering open Build Award rounds. The changes aim to cut time-to-decision while filtering out low-quality submissions that previously clogged the review pipeline.

Referral System Creates New Incentive Layer

The most notable addition is a verified referral pathway. Trusted ecosystem participants—including SCF alumni, ambassadors, accelerator programs, and official partners—can now vouch for incoming teams. Referred projects receive stronger trust signals in the review process and faster evaluation timelines.

Referrers aren’t doing this out of goodwill alone. The new system ties financial incentives to the success of teams they bring in, creating skin-in-the-game dynamics that should theoretically improve referral quality. Projects arriving without referrals aren’t shut out—they proceed through AI-based prescreening that filters obvious mismatches before human reviewers get involved.

Timing Aligns With Stellar’s 2026 Push

The grant program overhaul lands as Stellar executes on an ambitious 2026 roadmap. Protocol 24, slated for this year, will introduce zero-knowledge proofs enabling private transfers on the network. Soroban smart contract upgrades targeting cross-chain liquidity are also in development.

CME Group announced January 15 that it will launch Stellar futures on February 9, potentially bringing institutional trading volume to XLM. The token currently trades at $0.2253 with a $7.3 billion market cap, down 2.81% over the past 24 hours.

The network has been building its real-world asset credentials through partnerships with Visa, PayPal, and the United Nations Development Programme announced last September. More developers building on Stellar infrastructure could accelerate these institutional relationships.

What This Means for Builders

For developers considering Stellar, the pathway is now clearer but more structured. Finding a referrer from the existing ecosystem becomes a meaningful advantage—not a requirement, but a fast-track option. The AI prescreening should reduce wait times for everyone, though its effectiveness at surfacing genuinely promising projects versus those that simply write better applications remains to be seen.

Applications proceed to either panel review or community vote depending on the funding track selected. The Foundation hasn’t disclosed total funding allocation for SCF 7.0 rounds, though previous cycles have distributed millions in grants across dozens of projects since the program launched.

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