Stellar's Smart Contract Upgrade Bolsters Network Capabilities

The Soroban SDK has received an upgrade to Version 28, which includes several key changes and new features for developing smart contracts on Stellar's platform. These updates include Spec Shaking v2, contract data migration, sparsely published events, executable references, and native contracts that can be uploaded in tests. One notable change is the introduction of Spec Shaking v2, which alters how specs are included by using a principle similar to dead code elimination.

The update also introduces new behavior for better supporting contract data migration. This means that the SDK now emits an entry for everything, and the build system in stellar-cli strips the entries the contract does not use. Additionally, the struct representation on the ledger as a map keyed by field names has been updated to allow for more flexibility.

Stellar is also celebrating its 11th anniversary since launching on September 30, 2015. The network has made significant progress in making money move faster and more freely, with recent milestones including passing 22,000 RWA holders.