Stellar Blockchain's Smart Contract Upgrade Faces Potential Delay Due to Bug

According to CoinDesk, the Stellar blockchain's anticipated upgrade to include Ethereum-style smart contracts may face a delay after a bug was discovered, causing developers and validators to reconsider the January 30 target date. The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) found the bug in the Stellar Core v20.1.0 software on January 25. The bug could potentially impact applications and services on the new 'Soroban' smart-contracts transactions once the upgrade is implemented. Initially, SDF officials believed the bug posed little risk due to the phased rollout plan. However, after receiving feedback from the developer community, the foundation now plans to disarm its validators to prevent them from voting to upgrade the network on January 30. Other validators may still choose to proceed with the 'Protocol 20' upgrade. A fix for the bug is expected to be available within the next two weeks, and if the upgrade is postponed, the foundation will coordinate to determine a future vote date. Stellar, one of the oldest blockchains, was created as a fork of the Ripple protocol in 2014 and is upgrading to include the programmability of Ethereum's smart contracts. This development has led traders to speculate whether the upgrade could boost the project's native XLM tokens.