Back to collectionStellar Publishes Bell Protocol 30 Upgrade Plan
Stellar released Protocol 30 software and preparation guidance ahead of November testnet and mainnet votes, with required SDK and XDR updates for affected operators.
The Stellar Development Foundation published its Bell Protocol 30 upgrade guide on 20 October after Stellar Core v30.0.0 became available on 16 October. The guide schedules a testnet upgrade vote for 3 November and a mainnet vote for 23 November at 17:00 UTC. Those dates are votes, not evidence that either network has already upgraded.
Protocol 30 adds muxed contract addresses and post-quantum signature-verification functions, while changing the ledger-header format to support millisecond close times. Stellar says SDK users and raw-ledger-data consumers must update before the relevant vote because older decoders may not recognize the new data types. Existing Soroban contracts continue to work unless teams rebuild to use the new optional features.