XLM

General Data and Information Launched in 2014 by Jed McCaleb (formerly of Ripple) and David Mazieres, Stellar is a decentralized open-source network for the exchange of over 500+ assets (including tokens and fiat) via the Stellar Consensus Protocol. As the global remittance market was worth nearly 600 billion US dollars in 2016 (with small cross border transactions attracting comparatively high fees and slow service), easing the friction on these remittance payments would help Stellar capture a significant share of this underserved and antiquated market. In the Stellar network, users make payments (in any acceptable currency, fiat, gold, XLM) with other users, with the debts between trusted users being recorded on the decentralized ledger. When the payments are finalized the balance of the users are recorded upon the ledger. When two users who do NOT trust each other attempt to send assets, the network finds a path from start to end user via a network of trusted user pairs. As the payment is finalized, all balances along the trust path are settled immediately and simultaneously. In many ways, the Stellar network is very similar to the Ripple network in results for the user, however the philosophy of the networks makes for a slightly different implementation. Stellar aims for a more direct peer-to-peer communication of transfers, with entities known as anchors handling any required entry or exits into fiat currency. In contrast, Ripple aims to streamline existing banking systems. Milestones 31st July 2014 - Stellar Network launched. Non-Profit Stellar Development Foundation created to assist with development. 31st July 2014 - 3 million USD in seed funding from Stripe. August 2014 - First exchange utilising Stellar Network (Mercado Bitcoin) annouced. November 2015 - New Consensus algorithm (SCP) goes live. May 2017 - Lightyear.io (for-profit arm of Stellar, now known as Interstellar) launched. Steptember 2017 - Stellar Partnership Grant Program announces grants for development on Stellar Network. Utility Stellar Lumens (XLM) is the native currency of the Stellar blockchains and has several uses. The first use case is as a token for establishing your account, it is a minimal amount (1 XLM), to prevent network spamming. The second use case is for payments to establish trustlines from one payment node (account) to another account. Payment fees (0.00001 XLM) are another use case for the native currency, and larger users will also be required to use Stellar Lumens to be able to issue assets on the Stellar blockchain. The last use of Stellar Lumens is as a bridging currency and liquidity provider between users and chains who have no common currency to complete exchanges. As all the participants are transacting on the Stellar Network, XLM is the common currency for the blockchain. Thus, any “missing” assets required for a chain of exchanges can be substituted for the native Lumens. Significant Features Transactions are pseduo-anonymous. Funds are sent address to address, but an owner identity can eventually attributed to an address given enough data and analysis. Low energy usage and high network speed using Stellar Consensus Protocol. Total Supply uncapped. Peer to peer currency exchanges, tokens and fiat. All users are able to issue tokens on the Stellar Network. Open-source and highly decentralized. References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_(payment_network) https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf https://www.finder.com.au/ripple-vs-stellar-lumens https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-stellar/ https://www.stellar.org/