Towards Global Economic Change: A Look Back at Stellar's First Year

One year ago today, Stellar launched. In our first turn around the sun, we took challenging initial steps towards global economic change. We crafted cutting-edge technology, built relationships with partners, and were welcomed into the global development community.

Stellar.org is 1!

Here are a few highlights:

Team

• Stellar.org grew from a scrappy pair of cofounders— Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim—to a lean, diverse team of sixteen.

Spreading the word

• Executive Director Joyce Kim was honored to speak about Stellar at the United Nations.
• Stellar's efforts garnered attention from the BBC, WIRED, and the Wall Street Journal.

Development

• Chief Scientist David Mazières released a white paper that outlines the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP).
• The Stellar team created a new codebase for the network.
• We published the first chapter of Adventures in Galactic Consensus, a graphic novel that makes the ideas behind SCP accessible to everyone.

Community—you!

An inclusive Stellar community emerged and continues to grow. Together we can now:

• Chat with Stellar developers on every continent—except Antarctica. (Hey, Antarctic developers, we’d love to have you, too.)
• Join a real-time Stellar chat. The conversation grows by about 20% each month.
• Find Stellar resources in more than twelve languages. View How Digital Money Works in eleven different languages, or catch up on Stellar news in Chinese or Japanese.

Thank you

All of you have played a crucial role in Stellar's first year.

• If you've tweeted or told a friend about Stellar...
• If you've built a product that runs on the Stellar network...
• If you've given us feedback or read a piece that we've written...
• If you've attended meetups or chatted with us at conferences... then you've contributed to making Stellar what it is today. Thank you!

What’s next?

Our mission is to enable low-income people in underserved communities to take control of their financial lives. The next 365 days will be about making Stellar more accessible so we can achieve that mission. We'll be launching the new network, as well as introducing tools for learning to use and build on Stellar. And we need your help. In year two, the Stellar community will be even more involved. So what can you do?

• Come to us with project ideas that could use Stellar collaboration. The #general Slack channel and QQ are good places to talk.
• Ask questions in #dev channel about the code stack.
• Attend a local meetup, or start your own.
• Donate to Stellar.org. Your Stellar contributions bring us closer to a world where all human beings can participate in the global economy. Together, we can use the next year to work towards a new financial future.