Stellar Custody in 2026: Ecosystem, Risks and Custody Providers Compared

Stellar has become one of the main blockchains for regulated money. Banks, asset managers and payment companies now use it for stablecoins, tokenized funds and cross-border payments. For a business that wants to hold those assets, the question is no longer whether to support Stellar. It is how to hold assets on it safely.

That second part is where many teams get surprised. Stellar handles accounts differently from Ethereum or Solana. On most chains, custody is mostly about protecting the key. On Stellar, it is about the key and the account. We call this Account-Layer Custody.

Key takeaway

• Stellar's ecosystem now includes DTCC, MoneyGram, Franklin Templeton, Circle and a growing group of APAC banks and fund managers.
• Tokenized real-world assets on Stellar passed $3 billion in June 2026.
• Stellar accounts need a small XLM deposit, must opt in to each asset, and let issuers claw back funds.
• Fireblocks, BitGo, Taurus, Dfns and Fystack all support Stellar, but they are different kinds of products.

Who Is Building on Stellar in 2026

The short answer: the kind of institutions that usually avoid public blockchains.

According to the Stellar Development Foundation's Q2 2026 report, stablecoin transfers on Stellar reached $11.4 billion in Q2 2026, up 72% from the quarter before. Tokenized real-world assets hit $1 billion in January, $2 billion in April and $3.05 billion in June.

Here is who is behind those numbers, based on SDF's Q1 and Q2 2026 reports:

Notice the pattern. These are not crypto startups. They are regulated firms that need tight control over who holds their assets. For fintechs and exchanges in APAC, this is close to home: Kenanga is in Malaysia, Marketnode in Singapore and Bitkub in Thailand.

More of these assets will need a safe place to sit, with their own custody requirements for tokenized funds. So what does it take to hold them?

What Makes Stellar Custody Different

Four things work differently on Stellar. None of them are hard. They just need a decision before you go live, not after.

Account Reserves: You Pay Before You Hold

Every Stellar account must lock at least 1 XLM just to exist. Each asset it holds locks another 0.5 XLM, according to Stellar's documentation. The XLM is not spent. It works like a deposit on a safe deposit box.

The amount is small. But give every customer their own account, and it adds up:

Assumptions: 0.5 XLM per asset (for example USDC, or USDC plus EURC), no other account entries. Reserves are locked, not spent; fees are excluded.

So someone has to decide who pays. Fireblocks, for example, stopped funding the 1 XLM reserve for new Stellar wallets in January 2024 and passed the cost to customers.

Trustlines: Every Asset Needs an Opt-In

On Ethereum, anyone can send you any token. On Stellar, you have to say yes first.

That yes is called a trustline. Without one, a USDC deposit to that account simply fails, as Stellar's account documentation explains. So every new asset you support comes with a setup step before customers can deposit it.

Memos: Shared Accounts Need Labels

Many exchanges keep all customer deposits in one shared account. That is why the shared account in the table above costs almost nothing.

Think of it as an apartment building. The account address is the street address. The memo is the apartment number. Forget the apartment number, and the package sits in the lobby with no name on it.

Stellar has two fixes. SEP-29 lets an account demand a memo on every payment. Muxed addresses (starting with "M") put the apartment number inside the address itself, though not every wallet and exchange supports them yet.

Issuer Controls: The Issuer Keeps a Hand on the Balance

On Stellar, the company that issues an asset can approve who holds it, freeze it, or take it back (called clawback). This is not rare: an Allium report published by Stellar counts 79.3 million clawback operations on the network.

For a custodian, that means a balance can change without anyone on your team approving it. It is the Stellar version of USDT freeze risk on TRON, and your reconciliation needs to catch it. Since May 2026, the network's validators can also freeze specific entries in an emergency, through Quorum Freeze.

None of this is an accident. Stellar was built for regulated issuers, so issuer controls live in the network itself. The small account deposit stops people from flooding the network with empty accounts, as Stellar's original fee documentation explains.

In other words, what feels like friction to a custody team is protection for the network. You cannot remove it. You can only plan for it. That is Account-Layer Custody.

But how does it compare with the chains your team already supports?

Stellar vs Ethereum vs Solana: How Custody Compares

Stellar custody differs from Ethereum and Solana custody mainly at the account level: accounts cost a deposit, assets need an opt-in, and issuer controls are built into the network. Key security works much the same on all three.

Sources: Stellar documentation, Solana's exchange integration guide (0.00203928 SOL per token account) and the Solana token program docs.

Two things stand out.

First, Stellar and Solana use the same signature type. A custody setup that already signs for Solana is closer to Stellar than an Ethereum-only setup. The hard part is not signing. It is the account layer.

Second, Stellar is the only one of the three where the receiver has to act before a new asset can arrive. That one rule changes how you onboard every asset and every customer.

What about multisig? Stellar has it built in, and for a single-chain treasury it is often enough. But each extra signer locks more XLM, the signer setup is public, and the rules stop at simple approvals. Teams running custody across many chains often choose MPC instead. With MPC, one key is split across several machines and approval rules like spending limits run before anything is signed. Our MPC vs multisig guide covers the trade-offs.

Which Wallet Infrastructure Supports Stellar With MPC Security?

Fireblocks, BitGo, Taurus, Dfns and Fystack all publicly support Stellar. They are not the same kind of product. So start with one question: do you want someone to run custody for you, or do you want to run it yourself?

A hosted service is like renting a safe at a bank. Self-hosted infrastructure is like owning the safe. Both work. They put control, and responsibility, in different places.

For deeper comparisons, see Fystack vs Fireblocks and Fystack vs Dfns. Fystack's signing layer, mpcium, is open-source and documented.

How to Choose a Stellar Custody Setup

Whichever provider you pick, ask these five questions before real money moves:

1. Who pays the reserves?

Your company, your customer, or a treasury account. Decide before the first account, not after the thousandth.

1. Is each asset ready before customers deposit?
2. Customers should only see a deposit address after the account has opted in to that asset.
3. Can a deposit get lost? Deposits with a missing or wrong memo should go to a review queue, not disappear into a shared account.
4. Will you notice issuer actions? If an issuer claws back or freezes an asset, your records should show it the same day.
5. When are the rules checked? Spending limits and approvals belong in a policy engine that runs before signing, not in a report afterward.

If a provider answers all five clearly, it understands Account-Layer Custody. If it only talks about key security, it is treating Stellar like every other chain.

What Comes Next for the Stellar Ecosystem

Stellar is moving toward more regulated assets, not fewer. Every new bank stablecoin, tokenized fund and DTCC-linked asset brings an issuer with its own rules.

The open question for most teams is not whether to support Stellar. It is whether to build the account layer themselves or run infrastructure that already handles it. Either way, the teams that treat Stellar custody as an account problem, not just a key problem, will move faster.

If you are adding Stellar to a wallet, exchange or payment product, Fystack builds open-source, self-hosted MPC custody with a policy engine that enforces spend rules before signing. Start with the Stellar MPC wallet on GitHub.

About Fystack Fystack is a self-hosted custody platform for fintech teams. Its core signing infrastructure, mpcium, is open-source on GitHub, and the full stack can be self-hosted with one command. Fystack supports TRON, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, Polygon and more.

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