Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced at Consensus Hong Kong that TopNod, a non-custodial wallet, will be integrated into the Stellar network. This is part of SDF's broader effort to expand into Asia — a region where it faces stiff competition from Solana, TON, and XRP in payments and tokenization.
TopNod wallet uses key sharding and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology to eliminate the need for a seed phrase. The platform focuses on tokenized real-world assets and stablecoins instead of speculative tokens, although it is still quite a young project with its recognition mainly limited to the Web3 communities.
SDF is investing in emerging markets
In an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto, Stellar CBO Raja Chakravorti described the Asia-Pacific region as a “key growth driver” and stated that SDF intends to build anchor networks in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam over the coming year.
“We brought in employees who first focused on Singapore, but we are really focused on expanding rapidly,” Chakravorti noted, adding that more APAC financial institution partnerships will be announced in the next two quarters — without revealing specifics.
SDF has also collaborated with MarketNode, a tokenization platform based in Singapore, and stated that it is in discussions with financial institutions about the tokenization of money market funds in the region.
The goal is clear, but the implementation is still a question mark. Stellar's on-chain real-world assets exceeded one billion dollars in value over the past year, and its DeFi TVL tripled. However, XLM has dropped about 71% from its 2025 peak of $0.52. It has lagged behind both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Daily transaction volumes have remained steady, but the average transaction value has declined. This suggests that core use cases for payments continue, but speculative and high-value cash flows have dried up.
2026: distribution issue
Chakravorti admitted that tokenization no longer stands out in the competition by itself.
“Last year was about being able to demonstrate the building of tokenized products at scale. Now, in the next year, the focus is on finding the right distribution channels for these assets,” he stated to BeInCrypto.
This is perhaps Stellar's biggest challenge. Franklin Templeton's tokenized money market fund remains the network's flagship RWA product, and US Bank recently announced a stablecoin partnership. Competing chains, however, are moving quickly — both Solana and Polygon are founding members of the Blockchain Payments Consortium (BPC) alongside the Stellar network. Networks like Ethereum and Avalanche are also continuously attracting institutional tokenization projects.
Privacy vs. compliance
Stellar's recent X-Ray update (Protocol 25) introduced native zero-knowledge encryption technology. According to Chakravorti, this is more of an institutional requirement than a privacy-focused solution.
“Privacy can relate to the sender, the receiver, who holds it – but especially these must be auditable,” he noted. “Privacy may look a little different depending on who you’re talking to.”
The question is whether this configurable solution meets the needs of both regulatory and privacy-conscious users in Asia's diverse regulatory environment.
What's next
SDF confirmed that its annual Meridian conference will move to Abu Dhabi in October 2026. The TopNod integration is expected to become available in the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, and other Asian markets, but no exact timeline has been provided.
For Stellar, the recipe is familiar: strong infrastructure, growing institutional interest, and a clear narrative. As Chakravorti himself admitted, scalable distribution remains a missing piece.
