Stellar (XLM) Enhances RPC with Infinite Scroll for Ledger Data Access

Stellar (XLM) has taken a significant step forward by integrating Remote Procedure Call (RPC) with its ledger data lake, revolutionizing how developers access historical ledger data. This update eliminates the previous 7-day retention limitation, allowing access to the entire Stellar ledger history, according to Stellar.

Overcoming Retention Limits

Previously, RPC instances started with an empty database, ingesting ledger data from the network's current tip and retaining only the most recent seven days. The integration with the ledger data lake now allows RPC queries to access any ledger from genesis to the present, a significant enhancement for developers requiring historical data.

Understanding the Ledger Data Lake

The ledger data lake is a cloud-based object store containing metadata for each Stellar ledger from its inception. It adheres to a standardized format defined by SEP-0054, ensuring uniformity across implementations. Developers can choose between using publicly hosted data lakes, such as those available through the AWS Open Data program, or hosting their own for more control and compliance.

Implementing the New Feature

Developers can configure their RPC nodes to access the data lake by specifying storage types like Google Cloud Storage or AWS S3 and providing the appropriate bucket path. The initial endpoint to support this integration is the getLedgers endpoint, which now allows fetching any ledger sequence number from the data lake.

Performance and Cost Considerations

Accessing data from a cloud-based data lake is generally slower than local data retrieval. To address this, Stellar has increased the default server timeout for the getLedgers endpoint. The complete data lake, as of mid-2025, is approximately 3.8TB and is expected to grow by 0.5TB annually. Hosting a personal data lake involves costs such as a one-time bootstrap cost of around USD $600 and monthly expenses of approximately $160 for compute and storage.

Future Developments and Community Engagement

Stellar encourages developers to configure their RPC instances to leverage the full capabilities of the ledger data lake. The community is invited to contribute ideas or report issues on Stellar's GitHub repository or engage in discussions on Discord. This move not only enhances data accessibility but also aligns with Stellar's commitment to providing robust tools for blockchain developers.