Stellar is an open-source decentralized payment technology protocol for digital currencies that enables cross-border transactions between pairs of currencies. The payment technology protocol is backed by a non-profit corporation called Delaware.
Stella shares some similarities with Ripple. A blockchain-based digital payment network protocol that has its own cryptocurrency called the Ripple XRP. Jed McCaleb is the found of Stellar and also a co-founder of Ripple.
Similar to ripple, Stellar aims to bring together financial institutions and heavily reduce the fess and time period needed for cross-border transfers. Initially, both Stellar Ripple used the same protocol.
In 2014, There was a fork in Stellars network protocol which led to the creation of the Stellar Consensus protocol (SCP). When it comes to foundational differences, Stellar is an open-source system whiles Ripple is a closed system.
Stellar network system is concentrated on building markets and has multiple use cases for its technology network like money remittances and bank loan distribution to the unbanked.
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History of Stellar
Stellar was founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb. An American programmer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who is also the founder of Mt. Gox and a co-founder of the Ripple Blockchain network. The network system was launched with former lawyer Joyce Kim. Before it was officially launched, Jed McCaleb created a website called the “Secret Bitcoin Project” and was looking for Beta testing.
The non-profit Stellar Development Foundation was created in partnership with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison while the project officially started in July of that same year. The network system received $3 million in seed funding from Stripe.
Stellar was publicized as a decentralized payment network and protocol with a native currency called the stellar XLM. At the launch of the network system. there was a total of 100 billion Stellar with which 25 per cent of those were given to other non-profits networks working toward financial inclusion.
Stripe received 2 per cent which amounts to a total of 2 billion of the initial coins as dividends for its seed investment. The cryptocurrency was formally named Stellar but was later changed to Lumens or XLM.
The first Brazilian bitcoin exchange called the Mercado Bitcoin came out in August 2014 that it would be using the Stellar network. before the next year January 2015, The crypto had roughly 3 million registered user accounts on their network platform, and also its market cap value was almost $15 million
Continuing their journey, The networks Development Foundation released an upgraded protocol with a new consensus algorithm in April 2015 that used the SCP, a network protocol that was created by Stanford professor David Mazières. The protocol then went live in November 2015.
How Stellar Works
The payment network system works like several other decentralized payment technologies including Ripple XRP. The technology works on a network of decentralized servers with a distributive ledger which is upgraded every two to five seconds along with all nodes. What makes Stellar different from other technologies such as Bitcoin and Ripple is its consensus protocol.
The consensus protocol of the payment technology does not depend on the entire network of miners to approve transactions. Rather, the network uses the Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) algorithm which improves transaction speed by making it faster. This is because it uses quorum slices (a part of the network) to enhance and validate transactions.
Every node in the technology network selects or picks a different set of Trustworthy nodes. When a transaction is approved by all nodes in the set, the transaction is regarded as approved. This short process of the network makes it very fast and known for processing as many as 1,000 network operations per second.
What Makes Stellar Unique?
For many people in the world, charges on transactions are their headaches. There are very high costs in the market lately, especially when making cross-border payments that include fiat-based payments such as PayPal. On the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains too, transaction fees are known to be high because of congestion.
But the Stellar Network is very unique. Every transaction costs just 0.00001 XLM. The network helps ensure that holders or users keep more of their money with how one unit of the cryptocurrency just costs a few cents now.
There are few Blockchain networks that have managed to book collaborations with big-brand technology companies and fintech firms such as Square Inc, Stripe, and Finastra.
A few years back, Stellar and IBM partnered up and launched World Wire, a network that gives access to big financial organizations to advance transactions to the Stellar grid and transact using bridge assets and stable coins
One thing that makes it unique is Stellar permits its users to vote on which ventures should be given this support.
Where To Buy Stellar
If you are looking forward to buying the XLM coins, these are the best exchanges you can get them from
- Coinbase. Coinbase is a US-based exchange and enables you to make XLM for learning about Stellar.
- Kraken. Kraken is a US-based exchange with a web-based trading experience.
- Binance. Binance is a multinational exchange with web, desktop, and mobile apps for trading.
Stellar XLM (Lumens) price prediction
let’s take a peek at some XLM price forecasts made by top investors in the crypto market.
NOTE: Cryptocurrency predictions are made through algorithms and those predictions are not 100% sure or they are often wrong in any case.
First of all, we take the WalletInvestor’s XLM price prediction, They point out that the coin will rise up to $0.56 in a year, and will reach a dollar barrier by the end of April 2024.
DigitalCoinPrice’s XLM price forecast declares that the coin will reach $0.45 by December 2021. The coin will rise up to $0.63 in December 2022. In December 2024, it will be worth very little less than $0.80, but its forecast for 2025 catches it to reach $1.02 in December 2025. for December 2026, the price is predicted to be $1.26 then will be stabled at $1.26 in 2027 and go up to $1.59 in December 2028.
Lastly, gov.capital implies that XLM will initially fall, completing the year 2021 at around $0.30. The coin will then get to almost $0.47 in December 2022 and a year afterwards it will be at $0.80. It will go up and might exceed the $1 barrier by mid-January 2024. Before 2 December 2025, the price will be $1.67, and on 2 December 2026, it will be approximately $2.16.
Can Xlm reach $5?
Looking at the current rate of how investors have jumped on the coin makes experts believe the price of the can go up to $5. But when we view it to current realistic analysis, it is believed the crypto will not make it to $5 but will certainly exceed the 1$ mark by the beginning of 2025. According to Boardergame website review, they believe that the XLM coin will reach $1.14 by the end of 2025
Is Stellar XLM Good For Long-Term Investment?
XLM is said to be a good investment plan for people who are looking to make long-term investments. But just like any cryptocurrency, before you invest in it you need to make thorough research to be sure of when to buy it.
To prove the worthiness of the coin as a long term investment, we will illustrate two examples of its past and predicted future value performances
Example 1: During the launch of the blockchain network in July 2014, the XLM coins had a listing price value of $0.00294. Before its fourth year, and during the surge of the 2017/18 crypto market run, XLM coins went up to $0.938 (40000%+ gain). This means if you had bought or invested $2500 which was about 850,000 XLM coins on the launch date, you would have gained a huge profit of $1 Million during the XLM peak price.
Example 2: for this example, we will consider that Prime XBT estimation is correct in assuming that XLM coins will go up to $6 by early 2026. If you desire to gain high profits on your XLM investment like $1 million, then you must invest about $65,020 into Stellar Lumens at the current cost of $0.393 or alternatively, buy around 165,445 XLM coins today and hold for about 5 years.
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