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VIA Labs launched a two-way messaging link between Stellar and Ethereum on October 28, letting developers connect smart contracts and transfer supported tokens. The company announced the deployment during Stellar’s Meridian conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
The service links Soroban contracts with Ethereum Virtual Machine applications on mainnet and testnet. VIA published gateway and token contract addresses.
The service targets stablecoin payments, tokenized real-world assets and apps that need coordinated contract operations. VIA introduced VIAT, a reference token, to show how transfers work. Developers can build their own token contracts or custom message flows around the system.
How can developers trigger an action on Ethereum from a Stellar contract, or send an instruction in the opposite direction? VIA’s gateways receive messages from application contracts and pass them to destination contracts. This design lets applications start an operation on one chain and complete a related step on another.
The deployment links both mainnets. VIA also provides a separate route between Stellar testnet and Ethereum Sepolia. Its published network identifiers and contract addresses help teams locate the right gateways for each environment.
Developers cannot send protocol messages directly from ordinary wallet accounts. Instead, an application’s smart contract must call the gateway. Users then interact with the token or service contract rather than the messaging layer.
VIAT provides a transfer example. Developers can also integrate their own contracts for stablecoin operations, tokenized assets and automated actions that depend on instructions crossing between networks.
The VIAT example moves value through a burn-and-mint process. A transfer starts when a contract destroys the specified token amount on the originating chain. It then sends a message containing the recipient address, amount and optional memo.
VIA validators watch the source gateway and sign the message. A relayer delivers those signatures to the receiving gateway, which checks them before instructing the destination token contract to mint the same amount. VIA says this preserves supply and blocks duplicate messages. VIA operates validators, gateways and relayers to authenticate and deliver messages between both blockchains.
VIA estimates transfers take one to three minutes. Completion depends on how often validators check for messages and how quickly relayers submit them.
The two chains handle token precision differently. Stellar uses seven decimal places, while Ethereum uses 18. VIA’s client converts amounts, allowing a transfer of five VIAT to arrive as five VIAT on the receiving network.
Users still pay standard transaction fees in XLM on Stellar or gas on Ethereum. VIA has waived its own protocol fee for Stellar routes during launch. Its relayers also pay the destination transaction cost.
Stellar recipients need funded accounts. VIA warns that a transfer to an account that has never existed on Stellar can lead to tokens that users cannot recover.
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Stellar promoted the deployment at the October 28–29 Meridian conference. VIA representative Jake Salthouse met developers in Lisbon. VIA says Hashlock audited its VG1 contracts.
The new service follows Stellar’s September launch of USDT0 liquidity through LayerZero. That arrangement supports USDT-linked token transfers with firms including Kraken, Bitget and Fireblocks. VIA’s system differs because it also carries developer-defined contract messages.
Meanwhile, Securitize announced plans on October 28 to support Stellar as its 17th blockchain for regulated asset issuance and management. Its clients include BlackRock, Apollo and Hamilton Lane. Securitize has not yet completed that separate deployment.
DTCC discussed planned Stellar support for tokenized securities. Its tokenization service launched with 20 participating institutions, while the organization targets 2027 for a public-network rollout. For developers testing VIA now, a faucet provides 100 VIAT per request on Stellar testnet and Ethereum Sepolia. Stellar’s quarterly testnet resets require teams to refresh testnet addresses.
VIA Labs’ Stellar-Ethereum integration supports bidirectional contract messages and VIAT token transfers. Its gateways, validators and relayers handle message verification, while developers connect their own applications. Mainnet access and testnet tools are available, although Stellar recipients need funded accounts and users still face network transaction fees.