> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.stellar.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 2026-06-25 > Before the guests, a quick bit of ecosystem context for why this week felt busy. *June 25, 2026* · [Kaan Kacar](https://github.com/kaankacar), Developer Advocate [YouTube video player](https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xqBgocb6bCM?rel=0\&modestbranding=1) ## Another Doozy of a Week Before the guests, a quick bit of ecosystem context for why this week felt busy. Per the on-chain data, **Stellar's RWA market cap just crossed \$3 billion** — you can see it for yourself on the Dune dashboards. And the ideal Stellar developer meeting, in my book, is one with as many guests as possible, because the conversation I keep having with projects is that they want a real way *into* the ecosystem. Contributing is one way; introducing yourself on this call is another. This week we had two guests and, with a bit of luck, a new viewer record. We also had four days left to submit to the **Real World ZK hackathon on DoraHacks** — more on that from our second guest below. ## Guest: Gaian — Stablecoin Rails for Southeast Asia Our first guest was **Gaian** (gaian.network), a stablecoin payment infrastructure for the APAC region. In one sentence: it's an API that connects crypto wallets to local banking rails using **USDC on Stellar**, moving value between stablecoins and local currencies like the Vietnamese dong to power merchant payments, on/off ramps, and cross-border transfers that settle straight into real bank accounts. Imagine paying for a coffee in Hanoi straight from your Freighter, Albedo, or Beans wallet — that's the promise. Kelvin walked us through it live from Vietnam (at 1 a.m. his time). Gaian isn't new — the team has been at it for over a year and pivoted twice; what they demoed is the **v2** of the API. They're live across APAC (Vietnam, the Philippines, part of Thailand) plus Brazil and Peru, and in Vietnam and the Philippines they operate as the **anchor themselves**, working directly with the top banks. ### How the Flow Works There are several actors but only one payment. A consumer holding USDC talks to a wallet; the wallet talks to the Gaian API; Gaian uses the blockchain as the settlement layer and a partner PSP in the destination country to land fiat in the merchant's bank account. Crucially, **the merchant sees no blockchain at all** — they just receive fiat. ### Authentication The v2 API authenticates every request with an **HMAC signature**. You get an API key and secret from the self-service dashboard, build a canonical message out of the timestamp, method, path, query, and body, HMAC it with your secret, and base64-encode the result. Every request must carry that signature and timestamp. ### The Order Lifecycle There are two halves — onboarding a user, then placing an order: 1. **Onboarding.** Create a user (`POST /v2/users`), associate a wallet address to that user (the address is just a string — the wallet provider controls it), then generate a **KYC URL** for the user (providers vary by country) and poll their status by ID or wallet address until it's approved. 2. **Payment.** Ask Gaian for a code by passing the scanned **QR string**, the fiat amount, and the user's wallet address. Gaian returns a code ID, the fiat amount, the total (including the bank's processing fee), the exchange rate, and the decoded bank details. Then **place the order** with that code ID — Gaian returns an order ID, a status label, the settlement wallet address, and the token address (USDC today). The wallet **signs and broadcasts** the USDC transfer to the settlement wallet (not an API call), and finally notifies Gaian with the transaction hash so Gaian can verify it on-chain and mark the order settled (there's no automatic chain listener yet). There's also a **prefund** flow where a wallet pre-funds stablecoin with Gaian. ### The Demo Kelvin ran the whole thing live from a Bruno collection and a demo wallet, paying \~21,000 VND (under a dollar, with a small minimum bank fee) to a real Vietnamese bank account. The first code expired mid-explanation — a hazard of a good demo — and re-verifying settled it. The real headline: the **self-service dashboard** means any viewer can sign up, grab API keys, and integrate Gaian's payment capability into their own wallet without ever talking to sales, up to a \~\$4,000 cap before KYB is required. Gaian went **live on Stellar** the previous Friday, and for now it's mainnet-only — going fast to production rather than testnet-first. The one thing I asked for repeatedly (and will keep pestering them about) is a **self-service sandbox on testnet**, so we can amplify Gaian as an anchor to builders across the Philippines and Vietnam. ## The Real World ZK Hackathon Our second guest was **Jeremy** (also known as J Romero), the ecosystem partner running the **Real World ZK hackathon** on DoraHacks. The scope is deliberately wide open: anything that touches zero knowledge on Stellar qualifies — privacy pools, private payments, confidential tokens, verifiable computation, even ZK games. The news he dropped live: for the first time ever, they **extended the deadline** by about a week, so it lands just before the US holiday (giving builders more time and keeping judging off the judges' holiday plates). The prize pool is \*\*$10,000 in XLM** across five places ($5,000 for first down to $750 for fifth), plus a random $100 in XLM for someone who fills out the feedback survey. Requirements are light — an open-source repo and a short demo video. Everything runs on **DoraHacks** (search "Stellar"), but the real hub is the dedicated **Telegram group** (1,000+ people), where ecosystem ZK teams — Nethermind, Boundless, OpenZeppelin, Aztec — hang out to help. A prolific builder who's won three prior Stellar hackathons (including the ZK Gaming one) is helping as a mentor this round. There's also a resources tab on the hackathon page you can point your AI at, and office hours were being scheduled. Jeremy's parting advice: don't let AI name your project (three teams showed up with identical AI-generated names), and build the thing *you're* passionate about — Stellar has always been about local builders shipping local solutions. ## Closing I also gave a shout to the **Pulso hackathon** in São Paulo (on DoraHacks), whose prize includes a fully sponsored trip to the Stellar Summit, with live pitches across Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. I'd planned to close with a live `stellar-build` session — using the Justin and Nicole personas to show off the new self-running loop and spin up a ZK project idea — but at 75 minutes and seven cups of coffee deep, I saved it for next week. Next week we also have another guest, so please be there.