Stellar is a top-10 blockchain by market cap and daily volume yet it receives much less fanfare and attention than some of the other top chains. Most people know very little about Stellar. It is billed as the blockchain for emerging markets, supporting fast and cheap transactions; perfectly aligned with $DALA’s vision. The ability to enable fast microtransactions is just one component of what makes Stellar great. In fact, Stellar has the environment and tools to drive rapid growth and expansion of the $DALA network in an increasingly decentralized manner. Here’s how:

1. Stellar is scalable

Stellar boasts the best combination of transaction costs, transactions per second, and average settlement time of any major blockchain. The average cost of a Stellar transaction is 1/100,000 of a penny. In recent tests, Stellar has achieved 10,000 transactions per second and with an average settlement time of 5 seconds. This is incredible for onchain settlement.

Our belief was that payment and state channels were the only way to achieve the necessary speed and scalability which is why our roadmap defined a path to implementing such technologies for the Dala ecosystem. After utilizing an early form to support nearly 100,000 users, it became clear that the technology will take time to perfect. Additionally, in our opinion, there are very valid concerns about the long-term decentralization of payment channels networks. Rather than waiting to see how things play out, we can bring $DALA users and transactions on-chain, further decentralizing transactions, while still achieving the fast, low-cost requirements.

2. Stellar brings liquidity

Once an asset is issued on Stellar it can be traded using the Stellar DEX. The DEX provides pairs between any 2 assets available on Stellar. This will enable users to not only exchange $DALA with $XLM. It could also provide pairs with ETH, BTC, BCH, EOS, and more. Additionally, Stellar supports fiat currency assets. That means that Stellar can facilitate liquidity between $DALA and ZAR, UGX, USD, or other currencies where our users live.

Remarkably, even currencies that $DALA is not paired with can have exchange liquidity. Stellar has built-in multi-hop payment routing that will support up to 6 hops. Once $DALA begins scaling in any geography, it will have the liquidity infrastructure to support its growth as long as there are local participants in the Stellar network.

3. Stellar enables smart contracting

Stellar enables smart contracts to be developed and executed. Though, obviously nowhere near the Turing complete capability of Ethereum, Stellar’s smart contracting environment will enable the development of new Dala Network protocols. The first Dala protocol to be built on Stellar will be Soko, a decentralized marketplace for digital goods and services.

4. Stellar supports ecosystem expansion

The Dala Network will become more robust and more valuable with each additional user and geography served. No one entity can be relied upon to drive this growth, so new and existing companies must be attracted to the Network. One of the greatest elements of Stellar is that it has the tools in place to support the engagement of existing financial institutions. Institutions are able to act as anchors and issue particular assets for which they have liquidity. A bank in Uganda could issue a UGX asset and allow conversion to an asset that they offer, say BTC. Anyone with $DALA could then multi-hop to the UGX asset and cash out via this bank. This process would work in the other direction as well, providing major on and off-flows.

If you have worked with banks, you know the first thing that will need to be addressed will be compliance. Stellar has developed a Compliance Protocol that enables any financial institution to implement their own compliance practices in order to comply with local Anti-Money Laundering laws. This lowers the barriers to onboarding any new financial institutions. Furthermore, Stellar’s Federation Protocol will allow a simple UX that will facilitate the flow of money to and from fiat. Increased liquidity, supported by financial institutions, will make it easier to start attracting larger enterprises. Stellar will be foundational in achieving this goal.

As you can see, adopting Stellar is a no-brainer. Beyond these core functions and protocols, Stellar’s mission aligns with Dala’s. And unlike most “mission-driven” crypto organizations, Stellar has actually been doing the work in the emerging markets they hope to support. We’re thrilled to bring Dala into the Stellar Network (and vica versa) and continue providing more utility to Dala users. Through our multi-chain strategy, decentralized protocols, a growing ecosystem, and a consumer first approach, Dala will become the decentralized financial system serving emerging market consumers.