Stellar Activates Protocol 28 Amid Record Throughput
Stellar (XLM)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
cvj.ai reports that Stellar activated Protocol 28 on September 17 following a mainnet upgrade vote on September 16. The upgrade introduces CAP-85, CAP-86, and CAP-83 to improve Soroban smart contract management and network consensus. CAP-85 allows contracts to reference an externally managed executable, enabling atomic updates across multiple instances.
CAP-86 provides sparse-map functions to handle missing or additional data fields without requiring immediate schema conformity. CAP-83 lets validators progress through consensus parts without waiting for complete transaction sets and discards late sets. Blockchain analysis firm Chainspect recorded a sustained throughput of over 211 transactions per second across 100 consecutive blocks.
This performance milestone occurred as parallel transaction-set downloading was still being gradually enabled. Stablecoin supply on the network has risen to nearly $884 million over the past year. Token Terminal ranks Stellar as the third-largest blockchain by real-world asset market capitalization at approximately $3.3 billion. XLM price reached $0.1863 before retreating toward $0.18 at press time.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for XLM, measured when this story was written up on 17 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio data shows XLM trading at $0.1839 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 45.5%. The 1-hour buy ratio stands at 46.2%, while the 4-hour ratio is lower at 42.0%. Volume Delta is negative across all timeframes, totaling -$1,960,518 over 24 hours. This indicates that selling pressure has outweighed buying pressure in recent hours. A buy ratio below 50% means sellers are dominating the current order flow. The negative volume delta confirms that more volume is being sold than bought on Binance spot.
The latest daily buy ratio of 47.8% sits at the 16th percentile of the last 324 days, against a median of 50.7% - weaker buying than most days.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for XLM, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
The current 24-hour buy ratio of 45.5% is below the 7-day average of 49.5% by 4.0 percentage points. Spot volume for the day was $22,018,623, which is 1.15 times the weekly average. This suggests trading activity is elevated compared to normal days. Net buying occurred on only 3 of the past 7 days. The 24-hour volume delta of -$1,960,518 contributes to a total 8-day volume delta of -$3,591,583.