José Fernández da Ponte Joins Stellar Development Foundation

José Fernández da Ponte, the former head of blockchain at PayPal, has transitioned to become the president and chief growth officer of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF). At PayPal, he oversaw the implementation of digital currencies and stablecoins.

The SDF also announced the appointment of Jason Karsh, a former executive at Block and Blockchain.com, as chief marketing officer.

Stellar Blockchain Operations

The Stellar blockchain maintains a cash on and off-ramp network through MoneyGram and collaborates with partners, including Franklin Templeton, to tokenize real-world assets. Over the past decade, Stellar has focused on humanitarian missions, particularly enhancing financial inclusion in developing nations—a key reason for Fernández da Ponte’s move. He stated, “I believe that blockchains are an artifact for a community of people working together in a decentralized way to fix problems…there’s no better place than Stellar to work on that.”

Strategic Vision and Roles

Karsh, with previous experience at Coinbase and security firm Blockaid, aims to align brand, product, and ecosystem strategies to boost Stellar’s visibility among developers, institutions, and the public. He emphasized, “Stellar isn’t just another blockchain project; it’s financial infrastructure used daily by institutions and individuals worldwide.”

Fernández da Ponte, who has a background with Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and McKinsey, was instrumental in the launch of PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin. When asked about staying amidst stablecoin competition, he clarified that his move to Stellar was more about focusing on the infrastructure layer necessary for the operational scale of stablecoins, stating, “We need to have the technology primitives for those stablecoins to be useful.”

Stellar Token Performance

Notably, the value of Stellar’s lumen (XLM) token has surged by 38% this year, outperforming the CoinDesk 20 Index, which has seen a 27% increase.