The developers call the altcoin platform a more reliable and decentralized version of Ripple. At the beginning of March 2022, the value of the token is around $0.2 and is 31st in the world by capitalization (among cryptocurrencies according to coinmarketcap)
Stellar is a decentralized version of the Ripple platform. The network, which was launched back in 2014, should make financial transactions more accessible and businesses more profitable.
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History of Stellar (XLM)
In 2014, programmers Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim created the Stellar platform based on Ripple technology. Their goal was to build a more robust and decentralized system. The developers were going to solve the problems for which the San Francisco-based company has been criticized. At first, the project worked on the Ripple protocol, but after a year, it moved to its own open-source network.
For the decentralized development of the platform, the nonprofit Stellar Development Foundation was organized. Reports on its work are published in the public domain.
The fund issued 100 million Stellar tokens, the annual inflation rate is fixed at 1%, additional issuance, as well as mining, are not provided. A few months after its creation, in the same year of 2014, the developers rebranded to prevent users from confusing the name of the token and the platform. The token was called Lumen (XLM). Now many resources refer to the altcoin as Stellar Lumens (XLM). In 2019, the company’s management fund burned just over half of Stellar Lumens tokens due to an oversupply of tokens in the market. Since then, there have been 50 billion XLMs in the system.
Features
Unlike Ripple, Stellar is a fully decentralized, open-source platform. All participants of the system have equal rights and can influence the development of the project. The network can process thousands of transactions per second, the operation confirmation time does not exceed five seconds.
Stellar platform supports any cryptocurrency, and can synchronize with all financial systems, including banking. There is a certain threshold for transactions: 20 tokens on the balance. This is necessary for additional protection against hacker attacks.
The system works using smart contracts and multi-signatures. Through the platform it is possible to send funds around the world, while transferring money, for example, in euros, and the recipient can receive it in an equivalent amount in dollars, or in any other currency they want.
The software is available to all users because it is open source. The platform has various types of protection against hacking attacks. Users are not required to use a token in their work on the platform, they can use whatever currencies they want.
Where to store
Stellar cannot be mined, the token is traded on most major trading platforms such as Binance, Huobi, FTX, KuCoin and others.
Most users prefer to store the coin in the official cryptocurrency wallet Stellar Wallet. There are several versions of the program, the safest is considered the desktop version. To install it, go to the official website stellar.org.
Select the tab “Wallets”, to install the computer version, click on “Desktop Wallets”, then “Stellar Desktop Client”. You need to choose the version that suits your computer, then install it and create an account.
Third-party wallets are also available. Among them are:
- Physical wallets: Ledger, Trezor.
- Lobstr.
- Atomic wallet.
- Trust Wallet and others.
When choosing a wallet, you should consider the security of storage and ease of use. Wallet developers are working every day to improve wallet functionality and storage security. Ease of use is very important to the user, as payments and transfers should be made in seconds.
