Stellar Lumens (XLM) - An Open-Source Protocol for Exchanging Money
What is Stellar?
The Stellar network runs on a decentralized protocol that allows users to send/receive money anywhere in the world. Stellar uses a unique algorithm called "Stellar Consensus Protocol" to validate transactions, which is faster and cheaper than transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.
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Although Stellar is not technically a fork off of the Ripple platform, it is based off the Ripple Protocol . Like Ripple, it is made to for users to send/receive money from one account to another anywhere in the world. The platform uses a unique algorithm called Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) to validate transactions on its servers, which is regarded as more decentralized than Ripple but less than a true blockchain like Bitcoin (being decentralized is good). The SCP allows for both faster (5 seconds) and cheaper transactions than Bitcoin.
While Ripple is marketing towards financial institutions and keeping their blockchain privately governed, Stellar is shifting their focus towards retail companies and entrepreneurs who could benefit from a more public, decentralized ledger. |
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The platform accepts traditional currencies as well as Stellar Lumens coins and can exchange currencies at a very low cost. As an investor, you will be buying XLM (Stellar Lumens) coins. It is important to note that Stellar Lumens are NOT mineable and the supply of coins increases at a steady rate of 1% per year (this helps to reduce inflation on your investment).
History of Stellar!
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Stellar was founded in 2014 and was originally based off of the Ripple platform/protocol. Stellar has a completely new algorithm, which the founders believe is an improvement to Ripple’s code. The new algorithm was released to the public in 2015 (you can read about it here). In 2017, the company announced many new partnerships with note-able companies such as IBM and Deloitte.
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Who is on Stellar's Team?
Stellar was co-founded by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim. Before creating Stellar, McCaleb founded eDonkey2000 (a file-sharing network), Mt. Gox (the first Bitcoin exchange in the world), and Ripple. Yes, you read that right - he co-founded the coin that Stellar’s platform is based off of. Supposedly, while working for Ripple, McCaleb had several ideas that Ripple’s Board did not agree with and ultimately led to McCaleb starting his own project. Today, we can see that Stellar and Ripple have very different goals for their platform, neither of which has proven to be exclusively better so far. The other co-founder, Joyce Kim, was a Venture Capitalist prior to Stellar. You can see the rest of Stellar’s team on there website here.
