diff --git a/.github/workflows/e2e.yml b/.github/workflows/e2e.yml
index 73e40e913..690ce5ee3 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/e2e.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/e2e.yml
@@ -19,11 +19,11 @@ jobs:
       # the soroban CLI & RPC source code to compile and run from system test
       # refers to checked out source of current git hub ref context
       SYSTEM_TEST_SOROBAN_CLI_REF: ${{ github.workspace }}/soroban-cli
-      SYSTEM_TEST_SOROBAN_RPC_REF: https://github.com/stellar/soroban-rpc.git#v20.3.3
+      SYSTEM_TEST_SOROBAN_RPC_REF: https://github.com/stellar/soroban-rpc.git#v21.0.0rc1
 
       # core git ref should be latest commit for stable soroban functionality
       # the core bin can either be compiled in-line here as part of ci,
-      SYSTEM_TEST_CORE_GIT_REF: https://github.com/stellar/stellar-core.git#v20.2.0
+      SYSTEM_TEST_CORE_GIT_REF: https://github.com/stellar/stellar-core.git#v21.0.0rc1
       SYSTEM_TEST_CORE_COMPILE_CONFIGURE_FLAGS: "--disable-tests"
       # or set SYSTEM_TEST_CORE_GIT_REF to empty, and set SYSTEM_TEST_CORE_IMAGE
       # to pull a pre-compiled image from dockerhub instead
@@ -45,11 +45,11 @@ jobs:
       SYSTEM_TEST_JS_STELLAR_SDK_GH_REF: 
 
       # the version of rs-stellar-xdr to use for quickstart
-      SYSTEM_TEST_RS_XDR_GIT_REF: v20.1.0
+      SYSTEM_TEST_RS_XDR_GIT_REF: v21.0.1
 
       # system test will build quickstart image internally to use for running
       # the service stack configured in standalone network mode(core, rpc)
-      SYSTEM_TEST_QUICKSTART_GIT_REF: https://github.com/stellar/quickstart.git#eeb44ee99c564275654800edea2e426d73e966b8
+      SYSTEM_TEST_QUICKSTART_GIT_REF: https://github.com/stellar/quickstart.git
 
       # triggers system test to log out details from quickstart's logs and test steps
       SYSTEM_TEST_VERBOSE_OUTPUT: "true"