Stellar is typically a payment network designed to provide a decentralized protocol for transfers of both digital and fiat currencies alike.
Background of Stellar
The network came about in 2014 by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim. Several languages were used to write this platform including JavaScript, Java, Python, C++ and others. Since then, Stellar has been growing steadily to become one of the strongest platforms used for cross-border transactions between a currency pair.
Features of Stellar
Jeb McCaleb is the co-founder of Ripple, a popular cryptocurrency. Joyce Kim was his former lawyer where they launched the network after using alpha testers in their so-called “Special Bitcoin Project”. The network was launched with stellar, its native currency where it had 100 billion stellars then. Later, it would grow very rapidly where it breached 3 million registered users by 2015.
Growing popularity
Stellar had in 2015 announced that it was integrating with an open-sourced messaging platform, Vumi which was based in South Africa under the Praekelt Foundation. That same year saw Stellar announcing its partnership with Oradian, a cloud-based banking software company operating in Nigeria. A year later, Stellar integrated with Deloitte in the building of a cross-border payments application under the Deloitte Digital Bank umbrella before integrating Coins.ph involved in mobile payments.
Stellar would also expand further in 2017 when it joined IBM and KlickEx by offering cross-border transactions mainly in South Pacific. At that time, Lumens became the 13th largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. Stellar would then partner with Nigeria’s SureRemit which is a cashless remittances service. In its latest move, Stellar joined the Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine back in January 2021.
Pricing of XLM – 2021 Updates
As of the second quarter of 2021, the price for XLM is around US$0.080 which translates to more than US$1.78 billion in market capitalization. Over the years, the XLM has been as low as US$0.002 while its all-time high was recorded at US$0.93 in 2018 during the bearish market. At the end of 2018, the price of XLM was only US$0.09.
This performance has not grown much in 2019 and XLM was then known as one of the worse performers in the crypto market where it only reached US$0.16 as the highest price that year. 2020 was a much better year until the Black Thursday market crash when XLM was traded at US$0.03, a record low at that time.
Used widely for cross-border transactions, XLM is set to pick up again and that is what investors are banking on. At the current performance of the crypto markets since the start of 2021, it looks like XLM would breach the US$1 mark by the end of the year. Analysts believe that the bigger cryptos will stabilize towards the second half of 2021 and that would benefit XLM greatly as its value will slowly climb and then will stay above the US$1 mark for most of 2022 and beyond. If there is a good time to invest in XLM, it would be 2021.
Stellar Partners with top firms for payment solutions
Over the last few years, Stellar’s Lumens (XLM) has been working up the ranks by partnering with some of the top names in the respective sectors. This also shows the significance of the XLM as it becomes more accepted and recognized by large companies. As of May 2021, XLM is the sixth largest in terms of market capitalization of more than US$5 billion and has been touted to be the one to watch in the coming years. Among the notable partnerships that Stellar has gone into include:
- IBM and the Australian Government – One of the biggest deals reported recently, IBM recently announced a deal worth more than US$700 million with the Australian government to work on blockchain solutions with Stellar. This will involve systems for their defense and home affairs, among others.
- VISA leads the way – Stellar’s price increased positively after the USDC (USD Coin) went up recently. VISA is one of the few names of the USDC together with Circle and Tala where digital assets will be made available in certain markets.
- ICICI Bank – The biggest bank in India, ICICI and Stellar forged a partnership back in 2016 where transactions can be carried out on the XLM blockchain as well as a suggestion for a mobile wallet application then. Moving forward, that could make way for more potential and opportunities especially with more users taking up crypto assets.
- Deloitte for banking services – This came about in 2016 when the global audit firm accounted that they were working with Stellar to come up with solutions for banking services. Deloitte was among the early adopters of blockchain solutions and has been doing so with several other names ever since.
That said, XLM is competing rigorously in the market with the likes of the XRP (Ripple) in providing payment solutions. This trillion-dollar industry has been rapidly growing especially since 2020 and the need for affordable, reliable and fast transactions will only continue to grow in the near future.
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