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Fintech company Ascend Markets and the M1X Global platform announced on October 23, 2026, the completion of the first regulated short-term collateralized lending (repo) transaction on the Stellar (XLM) blockchain. The pilot transaction involved digitized U.S. Treasury bonds in interbank settlements, setting a precedent for direct collateral mobilization without the participation of centralized clearing systems.
A milestone for institutional capital markets on Stellar. @AscendFi and @M1XGlobal completed the network's first institutional repo transaction, using USDM1, a sovereign bond secured by U.S. Treasuries, as collateral. https://t.co/kdDOU9toyj
— Stellar | Meridian Oct 28-29 (@StellarOrg) October 23, 2026
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Code instead of bankers. And a fee of less than a cent
The traditional repo market is limited by the operating hours of settlement systems and requires significant back-office resources for manual collateral revaluation. The Ascend and M1X Global operation fully moved this cycle to smart contracts. The transaction ran continuously for three days, from October 16 to 19, including the weekend, when standard banking infrastructure suspends operations.
Over 72 hours, the algorithm carried out 72 consecutive hourly rollovers (loan extensions) without manual intervention, independently handling collateral locking, interest calculation, and clearing. At the same time, the total network fees for all cycles amounted to less than one U.S. cent.
The transaction parameters were aligned with the standards of the American association SIFMA:
- Collateral and settlement: USDM1 bonds from M1X Global (backed 1:1 by U.S. Treasury bills, governed by New York law) against USDC stablecoins.
- Pricing and risks: The rate was fixed at SOFR + 10 bps (3.98% per annum), and the value of the collateral was monitored by Chainlink oracles with a 2% haircut and an LTV limit of 98%.
- Compliance: Counterparty identification and on-chain KYC/AML checks were performed automatically at the code level through the ERC-3643 / SEP-57 standard.
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The precedent changes the nature of capital use within the Stellar network itself. According to rwa.xyz, by the end of October 2026, the platform had accumulated an array of RWA assets worth $3.64 billion, divided mainly between money market funds from Spicet Asset Management ($2.4 billion), Oasis ($557.92 million), and Franklin Templeton ($411.90 million).
The USDM1 instrument integrated an instant rehypothecation mechanism into this liquidity pool. As a result, the financial industry received working proof that resources from sovereign debt can be released and redistributed in 24/7/365 mode with near-zero operating costs.