Updates to Stellar Protocol (CAPs) and Ecosystem (SEPs)

Core Advancement Proposals (CAP) and Stellar Ecosystem Proposals (SEP) are a formal way of documenting proposed standards to improve various aspects of the Stellar Network. These function similar to EIPs and BIPs from the Ethereum and Bitcoin communities respectively. CAPs and SEPs represent the culmination of many discussions that often take place on the Stellar Developer Google Group.

It was an interesting week on the CAP front. Tomer Weller from SDF and OrbitLens from StellarExpert gave a talk at Meridian that covered the CAPs being considered for inclusion in Protocol 13. There were a total of four:

CAP-0015 introduces fee-bump transactions, which enable any account to pay the fee for an existing transaction without the need to re-sign or manage sequence numbers. Say validators decide they need to increase minimum the transaction fee: there’s a way to “bump” a pre-signed (or pre-authorized) transaction’s fee so you can still get it on the ledger.

CAP-0023 introduces a claimable balance entry, which helps anchors get around the chicken/egg trustline conundrum. It’s a protocol-level solution to the problem SEP-0025 tries to address, and essentially makes it so that an anchor can give a user access to a token even if the user doesn’t have an account or a trustline.

CAP-0018 makes it easier to issue regulated assets on Stellar by introducing fine-grained asset authorization. Once implemented, it will allow an issuer to de-authorize trust for an auth_required token without canceling open orders, which means they can approve trades on a case-by-case basis.

token without canceling open orders, which means they can approve trades on a case-by-case basis. CAP-00XX, which isn’t numbered because it has yet to be drafted, will be a protocol solution to multiplexed accounts. It will allow exchanges and other companies that map a single Stellar account to internal customer databases to send and receive payments that include info currently relegated to the memo line. That thing where humans forget to add a required memo? This CAP will stop that from happening.

Stellar Protocol: Design Consideration and What’s Next

One cool thing: during the presentation, Anthony Barker from TEMPO actually submitted a potential CAP of his very own. It’s in the early stages, but it proposes the idea of implementing a “cross order type,” which is an over-the-counter trade an exchange executes and announces to the market. The basic idea: two anchors can trade directly with each other on the SDEX, which means they can build a payment corridor that improves market volumes and has good auditability.