Stellar XLM 101
Stellar XLM is a payment processing platform connecting people, banks, and payment processors worldwide.
Starting in 2014, the Stellar network was formed by Jed Caleb, a co-founder of the now-defunct Mt. Gox crypto exchange. Jed Caleb also has contributed to the similar payments processor system, Ripple. A non-profit entity titled the “Stellar Development Foundation” was established with a $3 Million seed from the at the time budding Stripe company. Stellar was officially launched in July 2014 and in only 6 short months reached a market cap of over $14 Million with roughly 3 million users accounts.
What is Stellar?
Stellar, AKA Stellar Lumens, or XLM, is an open-source blockchain protocol created to exchange money and facilitate a borderless payments system for people, companies, and nonprofits around the globe. The decentralized platform uses its blockchain as a distributed ledger to allow users a trusted, controlled, fast monetary exchange environment. Stellar can exchange government fiat currencies in almost an instance ranging from a 2 to 5 exchange time. This is not only extremely impressive but also capable of countless real-world use cases around the globe in almost every sector.
Unlike Bitcoin or Litecoin, Stellar was created specifically to help the underbanked.
How does the Stellar network operate?
The Stellar network us a network of connected computers located around the globe. These servers run the Stellar software protocol utilizing the internet to connect with others on the network. This design creates a worldwide monetary value exchange network. Records of all accounts on the network are stored on the Stellar ledger, which every server holds an updated copy. Servers exchange value throughout the network by exchanging transactions from account to account until all servers on the network are in agreement of the transaction called consensus. Once a network consensus is reached, the transaction is added to the Stellar ledger and the funds' transfer is complete. This all happens in a matter of seconds, while each server keeps an updated current copy of all accounts on the network through the ledger.
How is Stellar Relevant Today?
The Stellar network offers many advantages to consumers and entities around the globe. Besides the ability to transfer value at a fraction of a second in an almost instant timeframe, Stellar opens up a whole world of resources to people, such as the unbanked population, anywhere around the world. Stellar helps offer services typically only available to those in the western civilization who have access to banks to anyone in the world. From low-cost value transfers to micropayments costing fractions of pennies, Stellar has a very promising future.
Able to offer mobile banking solutions historically offered only in brick and mortar institutions, Stellar is free to set up, free to use. Integrating into businesses existing payments network, as well as the ability to help non-profit entities globally accept and transfer funds put Stellar Lumens at the front of the payments processor’ pack. You cannot help but count the fact that the Stellar platform is also an open-source program, operating on a decentralized network. Stellar is backed by the creators of Stripe, Angellist, Y Combinator as well as Wordpress.
As of June 5, 2018 Stellar XLM is trading at $0.29 with an over $5.5 Billion market Cap. XLM can be purchased on many major exchanges such as Binance or CEX.io
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Image Credit: https://www.stellar.org/about/press/
Sources:
https://globalcryptoacademy.com/coins/stellar-coin-xlm/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_(payment_network)
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