Quick answer: Spacewalk is a bridge, built by the Pendulum team, that moves stablecoins and XLM from the Stellar network into the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. It is designed to be trust-minimized, meaning it does not depend on a single custodian holding the assets. The point is to let Stellar’s large collection of fiat-backed stablecoins be used in Polkadot DeFi applications. It went live on the Pendulum mainnet in 2024.
Part of our guide: Asset Tokenization.
Updated 07/17/2026. By Jake Claver. Educational content, not investment advice.
Stablecoins are most useful when they can actually move money between systems. A dollar token that only lives on one network is limited; a dollar token that can settle a payment, seed a lending pool, or cross into another ecosystem is closer to working money. Spacewalk is a piece of infrastructure aimed at exactly that gap between two ecosystems: Stellar, which is built around payments and fiat-backed tokens, and Polkadot, which hosts a wide set of DeFi applications.
The claims here are drawn from the primary sources and kept narrow. This is about one specific bridge and the two networks it connects, not a broad statement about enterprise adoption or any chain the sources do not cover.
What Spacewalk is
Spacewalk is described in the Pendulum documentation as the first bridge between the Stellar network and the Polkadot/Kusama ecosystems. It was built by Pendulum together with SatoshiPay, with support from the Web3 Foundation and the Stellar Development Foundation. Technically, it is implemented as a set of Substrate pallets, which means other Substrate-based chains can adopt the same bridge design rather than it being locked to one network.
Pendulum itself is a Polkadot parachain focused on connecting traditional fiat rails to DeFi, and Spacewalk is the plumbing that brings Stellar’s stablecoins across.
How the trust-minimized bridge works
Most bridge hacks trace back to a central party or contract holding the locked assets. Spacewalk borrows the vault model from InterBTC to reduce that single point of failure. The Pendulum team’s design write-up lays out the two core parts.
Vaults and collateral
- Permissionless vaults. Anyone can run a vault, so the set of operators can grow rather than depending on one custodian.
- Over-collateralization. A vault operator locks collateral (typically DOT) worth at least 150% of the assets it holds. If an operator misbehaves or loses the locked tokens, that collateral is slashed to refund users.
- Multiple assets. Vaults use Stellar’s trustline feature to support several Stellar assets at once, and operators choose which ones they bridge.
The Stellar oracle
To confirm that a transaction really happened on Stellar, Spacewalk uses an oracle that reads Stellar’s own consensus. It tracks Stellar’s Tier 1 validator nodes and their quorums and validates the signed messages those validators externalize, so finality is confirmed from Stellar’s network itself rather than a trusted third party. A governance process keeps the bridge in sync as Stellar’s validator set changes.
Why Stellar is the fiat side
Spacewalk points at Stellar for a specific reason: Stellar already hosts a broad range of fiat-backed tokens and the on-ramps and off-ramps to move between them and cash. In the CoinDesk coverage of the launch, Pendulum co-founder Torsten Stüber pointed to Stellar’s implementation of stablecoins and its fiat on- and off-ramps across different countries as the draw.
Concretely, the article notes the bridge opens access to USDC and regional stablecoins tied to currencies such as Argentine pesos, Brazilian reals, and Kenyan shillings, plus Stellar’s cash conversion through more than 300,000 MoneyGram locations. That regional-currency angle is the part that is hard to replicate: it is not just dollars, but many local fiat denominations that DeFi applications generally cannot reach on their own.
What “settlement work” actually means here
Using stablecoins for settlement, moving value to close a transaction, is exactly the use case regulators have studied. The 2021 President’s Working Group Report on Stablecoins from the U.S. Treasury framed payment stablecoins around their ability to support fast, low-cost payments, while flagging risks around reserves, redemption, and the issuers behind them. A bridge like Spacewalk does not resolve those policy questions; it only makes an already-issued stablecoin usable in more places. The reserve backing and the trustworthiness of each token still depend on its issuer.
Where it stands now
Spacewalk moved from testnet toward production in stages. Per the Spacewalk project page and the team’s public updates, it launched first on Amplitude (Pendulum’s sister chain on Kusama) and then went live on the Pendulum mainnet in 2024. During the early phases the amount of value that can be bridged is capped as a security measure, with the cap raised over time. That phased, capped rollout is a reasonable read of how carefully bridges have to be launched, given how often they have been the target of exploits.
Why this matters
For a builder, Spacewalk is a way to bring real fiat-backed liquidity, including local-currency stablecoins, into Polkadot applications without hand-building a custodial bridge. For anyone studying how stablecoins become useful, it is a concrete example of the harder half of the problem: not issuing a token, but letting it settle and move across systems safely. As always, the technology story is separate from any investment view. A working bridge says nothing about the price or merit of any token that crosses it.
Common questions
What is Spacewalk?
Spacewalk is a bridge built by the Pendulum team that connects the Stellar network to the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. It lets stablecoins and XLM from Stellar be used inside Polkadot DeFi applications. It is the first bridge between Stellar and Polkadot/Kusama and is implemented as Substrate pallets.
Is the Spacewalk bridge trust-minimized?
It is designed to be. Instead of a single custodian, Spacewalk uses permissionless vaults that lock over-collateralized deposits, typically 150% in DOT, which are slashed to refund users if an operator misbehaves. It confirms Stellar transactions through an oracle that reads Stellar’s own validator consensus rather than trusting a third party.
What assets can move across Spacewalk?
Stellar-based stablecoins and XLM. Because Stellar hosts many fiat-backed tokens, this includes USDC and regional stablecoins tied to currencies such as Argentine pesos, Brazilian reals, and Kenyan shillings, according to CoinDesk’s launch coverage.
Is Spacewalk live?
Yes. It launched first on Amplitude, Pendulum’s Kusama sister chain, and went live on the Pendulum mainnet in 2024. During the initial phases the volume that can be bridged is capped as a security measure, with the cap increased over time.
Does using stablecoins for settlement make them risk-free?
No. A bridge only makes a stablecoin usable in more places. The reserve backing, redemption terms, and issuer behind each token still determine its risk. The U.S. Treasury’s 2021 stablecoin report specifically flagged reserve and redemption risks for payment stablecoins.
This content is educational only. It is not tax, legal, or investment advice. Check primary sources and speak with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
