Stellar plans to introduce smart contract functionality through an upgrade, which will be rolled out in stages in the first half of 2024

According to CoinDesk, the public chain Stellar announced its plan to upgrade and introduce smart contract functionality, which will be rolled out in phases in the first half of 2024. The network validators' vote will take place on January 30th. The team stated: "In order to ensure this release provides a high-quality experience for developers, Stellar will evaluate trial contract deployments and communicate with developers when the smart contract platform (known as Soroban) reaches user-ready transaction levels per second."