Stellar Lumens (XLM): From Remittances to DeFi — Expanding Blockchain Utility in 2025

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3.8 Security and Decentralization Roadmap — Future Improvements

Validator Network Expansion

The Stellar roadmap prioritizes increasing the number and geographic diversity of validators, thereby improving decentralization and network resilience.

Initiatives include:

• Community outreach and grants to encourage independent node operators.
  
  
• Technical support and documentation to lower barriers to running validators.
  
  
• Periodic reviews and updates of the recommended validator list to reflect performance and trustworthiness (Stellar Roadmap, 2024).
  

Layer-2 and Off-Chain Scaling

To meet growing transaction demand while maintaining decentralization, Stellar plans to integrate layer-2 solutions such as:

• State channels: Allowing users to transact off-chain rapidly with final settlement on-chain.
  
  
• Rollups: Bundling multiple transactions into single on-chain proofs to reduce load (Stellar Layer-2 Proposals, 2024).
  
  

These upgrades aim to increase throughput from thousands to potentially tens of thousands of transactions per second without sacrificing security or decentralization.

Programmability Enhancements

Stellar currently supports limited smart contract functionality through simple operations and multi-operation transactions.

The roadmap includes developing:

• Expanded scripting capabilities allowing more complex contract logic while maintaining security.
  
  
• Interoperability protocols enabling seamless interaction with other blockchains such as Ethereum (SDF Annual Report, 2024).
  
  

This expansion targets attracting DeFi developers and broadening application scenarios beyond payments.

3.9 Technical Risks — Challenges to Mitigate

Centralization of Validators

As noted, validator concentration poses ongoing risks of censorship, attack susceptibility, and regulatory coercion. Monitoring and incentivizing diversity remains crucial (CryptoCompare Validators, 2023).

Complexity from Future Upgrades

Introducing enhanced programmability and layer-2 scaling increases protocol complexity, potentially introducing bugs or attack vectors. Rigorous testing and staged deployment are essential to maintain network security (Messari Technical Report, 2024).

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