In simple words, Stellar is an open network that facilitates the transferring and storing of money. It was released in July 2014 with the primary aim of providing financial inclusion through reaching the world’s unbanked.
However, after some time, it changed its focus to offering help to financial companies to connect with each other through blockchain technology. XLM is the native token of the network. Meanwhile, its native tokens, lumens, operate as a bridge for making trading assets across borders less expensive than traditional means.
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Who Are the Founders of Stellar?
Jed McCaleb founded Stellar with the lawyer Joyce Kim after leaving Ripple in 2013 over disagreements about the company’s future direction.
In explaining the rationale behind Stellar in September 2020, McCaleb told CoinMarketCap: “The whole original design of Stellar is that you can have fiat currencies and other kinds of forms of value run in parallel with each other and with crypto assets. This is super important to drive this stuff mainstream.”
McCaleb’s goal is to ensure that Stellar can give people a way of moving their fiat into crypto — and eliminate the friction that people normally experience when they are sending money around the world.
He currently serves as the CTO of Stellar, as well as the co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation. This not-for-profit organization aims to “unlock the world’s economic potential by making money more fluid, markets more open, and people more empowered.”
Total supply of XLM
At the launch of the network in 2015, a total of 100 billion XLM coins were issued. However, currently, the total supply of the token is 50 billion, but its circulation is 24.7 billion. It can be traded on various exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Huobi, etc. Check XLM Coin Price Right Now!
What is Lumens?
Lumens are most often used to pay transaction fees on Stellar. However, Lumens also act as the intermediate currency that allows Stellar users to execute trades quickly.
A built-in protocol automatically converts money sent through Stellar to Lumens and then to the desired coin. For example, if you send a payment in U.S. dollars to a recipient in Mexico, Stellar converts the payment to Lumens, and the recipient can receive the payment in pesos. It takes only seconds to complete the entire conversion, making it easy to send and receive money from anywhere in the world.
Moving Away From Stellars
At the time of its launch, the platform’s native currency was called “stellars.” Stellar later changed the name to Lumens, but the original name stuck with many people, so you might still hear the term stellars. You might also hear Stellar and Lumens used interchangeably, but Stellar is the platform itself. Lumens, or XLM, is the crypto asset used by the platform.
Where Stellar Come from?
Stellar was created in 2014 by business partners Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim. McCaleb was the founder of crypto exchange Mt. Gox and co-founder of the payment protocol Ripple, which he left due to conflicts about the future of the project.
Along with the Stellarn network, the team also launched the Stellar Development Foundation. Stripe CEO Patrick Collision collaborated on the nonprofit corporation, and Stripe provided $3 million to Stellar in exchange for 2% of the initial launch (2 billion XLM).
The Stellar Development Foundation is the organization behind Stellar. It supports the network’s technical and business communities, maintains the codebase, and releases regular reports on the Stellar network.
Who Created Stellar Lumens (XLM)?
Stellar is operated by the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit organization founded by Jed McCaleb and others. The Stellar project also received initial funding from a number of financial institutions and payment companies. Stellar Lumens was launched in 2014.
McCaleb also founded the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange, Mt Gox, and designed the Ripple (XRP) Ledger, a global payment alternative for financial institutions. Other contributors to XLM’s ecosystem include: David Mazieres, a creator of the Stellar consensus protocol; Denelle Dixon, the SDF’s Executive Director and CEO; Joyce Kim, founder of Stellar and former Executive Director of the SDF.
How Stellar Works?
Currently, investors who want to exchange various cryptocurrencies for established fiat currencies (e.g. the dollar, euro, yen) typically run into a lengthy and expensive process.
Stellar has created a semi-decentralized consensus platform which facilitates the exchange of major fiat currencies such as the USD, GBP, EUR, and others with crypto and other assets. Financial transactions are typically executed between two and five seconds, with thousands of transactions processed each second.
The native token of Stellar, Lumens (XLM), is used to power these cross-border transactions of both tokens and money. In this way, Stellar shares similarities with the Ripple XRP Ledger (and its cryptocurrency XRP), which is also meant to provide a protocol for payment providers and financial institutions.
What Are the Differences Between Stellar and Ripple?
The lengthy list of similarities between Ripple and Stellar would make some believe that there is no need for both. After all, they both:
- Have private nodes without mining allowed;
- Rely on distributed ledger technology;
- Deliver almost free and instant transactions, making them ideal for international payments and transfers.
Despite those similarities, there are enough differences between Ripple and Stellar to account for a need for both cryptocurrencies. The biggest differences are the target audiences and the goals behind the blockchains. As mentioned, Ripple’s creation occurred specifically to appeal to banks, a huge market with a great deal of potential for profit. By contrast, Stellar’s creation was to extend the reach of financial services around the globe, helping the unbanked. In fact, Stellar refers to itself as “not for profit” because its goal is helping people rather than making money.
The two also use different consensus algorithms, with the unique consensus protocol for Stellar and proof of correctness for Ripple. Furthermore, Lumens coins are inflationary, while XRPs are deflationary, meaning they increase and decrease circulation, respectively. Finally, Ripple is more centralized than Stellar, although both are much more decentralized than traditional currencies.
It is also interesting to note that Ripple tends to be a larger organization and has raised much more capital, something likely related to the difference in target audiences. By contrast, Stellar has a smaller yet highly experienced team and has not put as much of an emphasis on marketing as Ripple has.
Overall, there are differences in:
- Goals;
- Size of the organization;
- Inflationary vs. deflationary nature of tokens;
- Consensus protocols.
Is XLM a Good Investment?
Whether XLM is a suitable investment for you depends on your personal investing circumstances and goals. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile investments, making them riskier than other asset classes. You should evaluate the level of risk you are prepared to accept before investing. Never invest money you cannot afford to lose.
Where To Buy Stellar Lumens?
You can purchase Lumens directly from the Stellar platform, but this is certainly not the only way to do so. Lumens are available on most crypto exchanges, including:
- Kraken
- Binance
- Coinbase
- Bitfinex
- Bittrex
- Huobi
- Upbit
- Coincheck
- GMO Coin
- NovaDAX
Even if you do not see your preferred exchange listed here, there is a good chance it offers Lumens. Check your platform’s crypto asset availability.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Stellar Lumens (XLM)
With its focus on making global payments more accessible for ordinary and unbanked consumers, Stellar Lumens (XLM) has a few pros and cons investors should consider.
Advantages
Thanks to its proprietary consensus mechanism, Stellar Lumens has faster, cheaper transaction speeds, and transactions typically cost less than a penny. This is a significant advantage over other global payment companies which charge higher fees.
One of the ways that Stellar can create a faster exchange network without sacrificing stability and security is through its use of anchors. Anchors are financial institutions that act as on/off ramps that facilitate the exchange of different currencies.
Most recently, the platform announced that in 2022 Stellar would begin to offer smart contracts, which seems like a natural extension of Stellar’s basic m.o. to create affordable financial transactions. As noted on the SDF blog: “Since the Stellar network was built for the future of payments, it’s critical that smart contracts on Stellar are secure for users and can scale without exorbitant network fees. If done right, this could set smart contracts on Stellar apart from the rest.”
Disadvantages
Although the vision of Stellar Lumens is certainly promising, the platform and crypto do have some downsides — especially the relatively low value of XLM. Some speculate that Stellar is more focused on growing its network and services, and less on the value of its coin.
Whether or not that’s true, it might be necessary to focus on developing and expanding Stellar’s features and offerings in order to stave off competitors like Ripple (XRP), Ethereum, and others.
Last, XLM does not offer investors a lot of opportunity in terms of volume and liquidity.
What Makes Stellar Unique?
Plenty of digital currencies offer cheap, lightning-fast transactions. Stellar’s advantage is that it works with any type of money. You could use Stellar to transfer a digital representation of the U.S. dollar, the euro, Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), or any other currency on the planet.
Although many types of cryptocurrencies are intended to replace current financial systems, that isn’t the case with Stellar. It’s designed to enhance the world’s financial systems by providing a single network where they can all work together.
For individuals, there are a couple of ways to use Stellar. Stellar apps and third-party services acting as network anchors give users an easy way to transfer funds to someone else, no matter where they live. You can also use it to purchase digital versions of different currencies — a valuable option for people in countries that don’t have a strong national currency and want to use another currency for their savings.
As an open-source network, the Stellar infrastructure is available for anyone to use and build on. Companies can use it to develop their own blockchain wallet, app, or crypto token. They can also use Stellar’s network for payments and converting digital currencies to cash, and vice versa. And the Stellar Development Foundation has recently supported use of Stellar for a broader range of uses, including NFT minting and smart contracts.
Can I Earn Free Stellar (XLM)?
1.Mine Stellar Lumens
3. Completing Surveys
4. Play Games
5. Referring Friends
6. Watching Videos
7. XLM Airdrops
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Stellar (XLM) Price History
Like most cryptocurrencies, Stellar XLM has seen major price spikes and valleys. According to CoinGecko, the lowest price a lumen ever reached was in March 2015, when they were worth $0.00047612 each. Stellar’s highest price came on Jan. 3, 2018, when a single lumen was worth about $0.87. Although prices bottomed out a bit following that time, they have climbed back strongly in 2020 and 2021. Based on information from CoinDesk, the current market capitalization of XLM is around $40 billion. The live Stellar price today (2022/4/15) is $0.206234 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $457,328,608 USD.