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Stellar’s Bell upgrade reaches testnet before Nov. 23 vote

Stellar’s Bell upgrade is live on testnet, giving developers time to check new smart-account features before validators vote on a mainnet upgrade Nov. 23.

Crypto Talk Editorial

Stellar’s Bell upgrade reaches testnet before Nov. 23 vote

Stellar’s Bell upgrade, known as Protocol 30, went live on testnet on Nov. 3 ahead of a validator vote on mainnet activation scheduled for Nov. 23 at 17:00 UTC, CoinMarketCap reported.

The testnet gives builders time to check whether their apps and tools are ready before the proposed changes reach Stellar’s main network.

What changes could Bell bring to Stellar?

Bell includes three proposed changes, according to the Stellar Development Foundation’s announcement. One lets a smart contract address carry a 64-bit ID, so one contract can receive funds for multiple customers and identify whose deposit is whose. The new address format starts with W.

Another change would let smart contracts verify ML-DSA post-quantum signatures. That does not make Stellar’s network transaction signatures quantum-safe: those would remain Ed25519. The third change records ledger timing in milliseconds. It prepares for future work on faster ledger closes, but Bell itself does not make the network produce blocks faster.

What does the testnet launch mean for users now?

For someone sending or holding XLM, the testnet launch does not mean these changes are already active on mainnet. Validators are due to vote on Nov. 23; the upgrade takes effect on mainnet only if they approve it. Everyday users do not need to change how they transact just because the testnet upgrade is live.

The immediate work falls to developers and service operators. The Foundation’s upgrade guide says Stellar SDK users need updated versions because Protocol 30 changes the ledger header format. Apps that validate or store addresses also need to handle the new W format. Operators who decode raw ledger data must update their XDR definitions or their tools may fail to read upgraded ledgers.

For wallet, exchange and infrastructure teams, that means testing the new software and address handling before the mainnet vote. For users, the practical question is whether the services they rely on complete those updates; the vote date is a decision point, not a guarantee of activation.

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