Stellar Lumens(XLM)

Launched in 2014 by Ripple co-founder, Jade McCaleb and a lawyer named Joyce Kim, Stellar is an open blockchain-based payment network. Much like Ripple (XRP), Stellar also facilitates easy movement of money across the globe. While Stellar’s original aim was to accomplish financial inclusion for the unbanked population of the world, it later shifted its focus to enable uninterrupted connectivity between financial firms through blockchain tech. The network is designed to bring all financial systems of the world on a single platform, allowing them to work seamlessly with each other.

XLM (Stellar Lumens), the native token of Stellar network, serves as a bridge that reduces the cost of conducting cross-border transactions. The network also has its own decentralized exchange for convenient trading. Having established a number of real-world use cases and partnerships with well-known companies like Deloitte, Strip and Shift, Stellar seems poised to tap into the payments market.

Stellar network’s development is overseen by the Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit corporation based out of Delaware, US, which was co-founded by Jade McCaleb. 

XLM price

According to our XLM live price chart, the price of XLM in USD remained range-bound within $0.0015 to $0.003 from the time of its launch in July 2014, till April 2017. It breached the $0.06 barrier for the first time on May. 21, 2017 — around the same time when Stellar’s commercial arm ‘Lightyear’, came into being. 

Thereafter, XLM coin traded well above $0.01 till November 2017, when it started surging along with the broader crypto market. Many coins registered new highs in the months that followed, and XLM price too recorded an all-time high just below $0.9 on Jan. 3, 2018. 

In August 2018, Lightyear acquired fintech developer Chain, with two companies merging to create Interstellar. The crypto market had entered a corrective phase by this time, with Stellar price at a little over $0.2. 

The Stellar Development Foundation announced on Nov. 5, 2019, that it had burnt over half of XLM’s total supply of 105 billion coins. Though highly significant, the event didn’t have the expected impact on XLM price, which closed at around $0.08 that day.

XLM traded mostly under $0.1 during the year that followed and showed signs of recovery starting in December 2020. Boosted by the market-wide positive sentiment, XLM coin entered a bullish cycle and hit another peak of $0.79 on May 16, 2021. XLM’s fully diluted valuation stood at over $40 billion that day. However, Stellar Lumens price sharply within a month and it traded under $0.4 for the remaining part of the year, further receding to $0.2 in early 2022. 

How XLM works

XLM, the native coin of Stellar payment network functions as a bridge to reduce the cost of cross-border payments. XLM coin offers a cheaper and faster way of settling global payments as compared to remittance giants like Western Union and MoneyGram. It is also used to pay transaction fees for moving Stellar Lumens — a minimum 0.0001 XLM per transaction. 

All Stellar users must hold a minimum balance of 1 XLM to use the network. XLM holders can even trade the coin with other crypto assets on well-known exchange platforms. 

Invented by its chief scientist David Mazieres in 2015, Stellar uses something known as the "Stellar Consensus Protocol" (SCP) for processing transactions and securing its network. Under this protocol, the task of validating transactions and creating new blocks is assigned to a group of trustworthy nodes that are periodically voted upon.

Any network participant can run a node, and every node gets to vote on whom it considers trustworthy. The winners of the majority votes are tasked with validating transactions. SCP, with its four key properties - decentralized control, flexible trust, low latency and asymptotic security - ensures that transactions are processed cheaply and within a matter of seconds. 

XLM news, updates and highlights

In January 2021, Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation announced a major partnership with Stellar for the development of the country’s digital infrastructure, leading to a 40% increase in XLM price. 

In another important XLM news, the remittance giant, MoneyGram, entered into an innovative partnership with Stellar in October 2021. This was a few months after it was reported that Stellar Foundation was eyeing a potential acquisition of the 81-year-old company. This partnership gives digital wallets linked to the Stellar network instant access to MoneyGram’s global retail network. This has helped Stellar users experience almost-instant settlements in USDC.

Frequently asked questions about XLM

• Can you mine or stake XLM?

No, you cannot mine XLM as its total supply was pre-mined. Furthermore, staking is also unavailable for Stellar Lumens.

• What are some of the best XLM wallets?

Some of the wallets recommended for XLM storage include Ledger Nano S, Trezor, Keybase, Lobstr, Solar Wallet and Coinbase wallet.

• What can you do with XLM?

XLM coins can be used to pay transaction fees on the Stellar payment network. You can also trade Stellar Lumens with other popular crypto coins on established exchange platforms.

• How to buy XLM?

You can buy XLM from various crypto exchanges, including Kraken and Coinbase in the US. You can easily exchange cryptocurrencies you hold, for XLM coins, on these platforms. Check their ‘Markets’ or ‘Trade’ section and pick from trading pairs like XLM/BTC, XLM/ETH, XLM/XRP, XLM/SHIB etc. to execute the exchange. Lobstr, the native Stellar exchange facilitates direct XLM purchases on the Stellar network.