What is Stellar?
Stellar (XLM) is a payments-focused blockchain launched in 2014 by Jed McCaleb (who previously co-founded Ripple) and Joyce Kim. Its purpose is to make moving money around the world fast, cheap and inclusive - particularly for unbanked populations in emerging markets.
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is the native token, used to pay negligible transaction fees and to act as a bridge asset between fiat currencies when direct liquidity doesn't exist. The Stellar Development Foundation supports a broad partnership program with banks, money-transfer operators and NGOs.
How does Stellar work?
Stellar uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a federated Byzantine Agreement system. Validators are organised into quorums chosen by participants, and consensus is reached whenever overlapping quorums agree. New ledgers close every five seconds and transactions cost a fraction of a cent.
The ledger natively supports issued assets, a built-in decentralized exchange, path payments that find the cheapest route between two currencies, and - as of 2023 - Soroban smart contracts, a WebAssembly-based platform that adds programmability to the chain without compromising its payments heritage.
What is Stellar used for?
Stellar's primary use case is cross-border payments and money transfer. MoneyGram, Circle, Flutterwave and various stablecoin issuers run rails on Stellar; its path-payment mechanism lets a sender in one currency pay a receiver in another without either party handling an intermediate asset.
Beyond remittances, Stellar hosts tokenized treasury products, stablecoins like USDC, and a growing Soroban ecosystem of DeFi and identity applications. Its combination of near-zero fees, fast finality and built-in asset issuance makes it a frequent choice for fintech integrations.
Where can you buy Stellar?
Stellar (XLM) is traded on a wide range of centralized and decentralized exchanges. The most liquid markets for XLM sit on tier-1 venues - the sort of exchanges where institutional desks and professional market makers rebalance continuously - which is what keeps the spread tight and the last price tied closely to fair value.
You can open the Markets section above to see the live list of exchanges quoting XLM, sorted by 24-hour volume. Each row links to the venue's trade page so you can go directly from research to execution without copying the ticker around by hand.
What is the daily trading volume of Stellar (XLM)?
The reported 24-hour trading volume of Stellar is $119.72M. Volume is a live reading of how much XLM changed hands across all tracked exchanges in the past day and tends to rise during periods of price discovery and fall during consolidation.
For traders, the ratio between volume and market cap is often more informative than either number on its own: a high vol-to-mcap ratio indicates liquid, actively traded supply, while a low ratio suggests that most holders are sitting on the asset.
What is the highest and lowest price for Stellar (XLM)?
Stellar reached an all-time high of $0.8756 on January 3, 2018, and an all-time low of $0.0004761 on March 5, 2015. It is currently trading -81.85% from its peak and +33270.54% from its bottom.
The distance from ATH is a useful gauge of recovery potential during a bear market and of stretched positioning during a bull market. Combined with the all-time-low figure it provides a quick statistical frame for thinking about where XLM sits in its long-run price range.
What is the market cap of Stellar (XLM)?
Stellar's market capitalization is currently $5.32B, and it is ranked #22 by market cap on Cryptopricing. Market cap is calculated as the current price multiplied by the circulating supply (33.45 billion XLM are actively circulating today).
Market cap is a common but imperfect measure. It reflects the theoretical value of every circulating token at the current market price, but it doesn't capture how thin the top of the order book might be - an important caveat for tokens with low floats or illiquid cap tables.
What is the fully diluted valuation of Stellar (XLM)?
The fully diluted valuation (FDV) of Stellar is $7.95B. FDV is a projection of what the market cap would be if every token that will ever exist - including those that have not yet been unlocked, mined or issued - were in circulation at the current price.
FDV is a useful second reading alongside market cap. A large gap between mcap and FDV signals that future token emissions could dilute current holders, while a small gap indicates that supply is already mostly out.
How does the price performance of Stellar compare against its peers?
Over the past 24 hours, Stellar has moved -1.28%. Over the past seven days, the change is -0.38%. Comparing these figures to the global crypto market cap change (shown in the ticker at the top of this page) tells you whether XLM is leading, lagging or tracking the broader market.
For deeper analysis, the categories strip on the home page groups coins by theme - Layer 1, Meme, DePIN, AI, RWA and so on - and lets you compare Stellar against its closest peers. The category detail pages surface the underlying coins and their seven-day sparklines in a single view.
How to store Stellar?
Like any crypto asset, the right way to store XLM depends on how often you plan to use it. Long-term holders typically self-custody using a hardware wallet such as Ledger or Trezor, which keeps private keys offline and immune to most remote attacks.
For active traders, a reputable custodial exchange wallet can be appropriate, especially one with clear proof-of-reserves attestations. Whatever approach you choose, the most important rule is to keep your recovery phrase offline, never share it, and never enter it into a web form or attached to a DM - no legitimate support agent will ever ask for it.
