{"id":48,"date":"2021-05-22T18:17:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T18:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stellar-wallet.org\/arts\/?p=48"},"modified":"2022-01-27T12:11:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T12:11:02","slug":"short-history-stellar-lumens-xlm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stellar-wallet.org\/arts\/short-history-stellar-lumens-xlm.html","title":{"rendered":"Stellar Lumens (XLM) – a short history everyone should read"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, we\u2019ll talk about Stellar Lumens (XLM). What is it? And when was it created? Why do we need to learn more about this crypto? Cryptocurrency and blockchain regularly make headlines, but what do we really know about crypto? While we all heard a thing or two about Bitcoin, there are various types of cryptocurrency we should know about. \u00a0In this article, we\u2019ll reveal the hidden history of Stellar Lumens.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stellar cryptocurrency, so-called XLM, is up 75% since the beginning of 2020 and continues to rocket higher which makes it a good investment. Moreover, if we compare XLM to Bitcoin, we\u2019ll find another reason to pay attention to Stellar. When it comes to the time that it takes for one Bitcoin transaction to be processed, XLM can make up to 200 transactions in the same amount of time.<\/p>\n

The early days of Stellar and how it works now<\/h2>\n

Created in 2014, Stellar is a product of the Stellar Development Foundation, and initially, it wasn\u2019t about the cryptocurrency itself. Who were the founders?\u00a0 Among the creators was Jed McCaleb, who is famous as co-founder of Ripple. He also launched the now non-functioning bitcoin exchange, called the Mt. Gox.\u00a0 Stellar was created as something bigger than one particular cryptocurrency as the aim of the founders was to offer the integrity of financial transactions.<\/p>\n

Stellar was tailored to be a decentralized payment platform that would give its clients an opportunity to make international transactions between any areas and any currencies. Unlike its main rival in the market, Ripple, Stellar Lumens concentrates on the individuals rather than financial institutions. In other words, the ecosystem links people, institutions, and payment systems whenever they are located.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, Stellar is an international consortium that brings together individuals and businesses from all over the world. Stellar works with numerous currencies. For example, it allows exchanging Stellar for Bitcoin. Plus, they work as a decentralized system for Bitcoin exchange. Stellar has its own native crypto called Lumens or XLM.<\/p>\n

Stellar Lumens went through different times during these six years. In March 2019, Stellar announced that Denelle Dixon would take over Jed McCaleb’s leadership role as executive director. In the same year, Binance started to work with Stellar<\/a>. Binance\u2019s Trust Wallet began to accept and support XLM transactions for its customers.<\/p>\n

What happened to Stellar Lumens over these years? Here are the most important milestones to pay attention to.<\/p>\n

Airdrops<\/h2>\n

Advertising both itself and Stellar, Blockchain.com promoted its first airdrop in 2018. They were going to release $125 million in XLM over a half a year. The company decided to deposit $25 in XLM into each new Blockchain\u2019s wallet. The rest of the Stellar Lumens should have been given to existing customers. This airdrop began on November 11, 2018. Did it change the Stellar\u2019s price? Of course, the price increases by ten percent right after the announcement and it continued to rise for at least one day after the airdrop started. Blockchain.com claimed that this airdrop was the biggest one ever.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the only giveaway. In 2019, Stellar Lumens announced another airdrop. The company planned to give away more than $120 million worth of Stellar Lumens. They also cooperated with Keybase, a file-sharing application to organize the process. The event was designed to take place for 20 months and only verified customers were eligible to participate. Each of the clients would get up to $500 worth of XLM. However, the situation rapidly changed as in December 2019, Keybase wrote in their blog that the planned airdrop had been canceled. According to the post, Keybase was unable to verify and ban all the fraudulent accounts.<\/p>\n

Cooperation with Thunes and Western Union<\/h2>\n

Although XLM isn\u2019t as popular as Bitcoin, it has many partners that support Lumen transactions. In March 2019, Western Union<\/a> started to work with Thunes, a blockchain platform that offers transnational transactions. Thunes’ technology relies on XLM, meaning that Western Union will use XLM for cross-border payments.<\/p>\n

\"Stellar<\/p>\n

XLM became one of the best<\/h2>\n

Is XLM recognized on the market?\u00a0 In April 2019, Lumens became one of the most popular cryptocurrencies listed on Coinsquare.com, a famous Canadian trading platform. The CEO of Coinsquare admitted that XLM was mentioned because the cryptocurrency was often requested by its users.<\/p>\n

Network issues<\/h2>\n

On May 15, 2019, the Stellar platform<\/a> collapsed for more than two hours. The network was unable to validate XLM transactions. The price of Lumens increased by 20 percent after the breakdown. Why did it happen? The CTO of Stellar Lumens explained that the reason was in the platform itself. Stellar Lumens was working too fast, and it resulted in the network issues.<\/p>\n

Lumens burn<\/h2>\n

In 2019, Stellar\u2019s executive director Denelle Dixon stated that 55 billion of the initial 105 billion XLM had been terminated (“burned”) by moving them to a signature-free address. Around ten percent of the burned crypto was in Stellar\u2019s operating account and the rest had been held in the partnership accounts.<\/p>\n

The main benefits of XLM<\/h2>\n

Is XLM a good cryptocurrency? It is impossible to access it right now, but Lumens have tons of advantages. Here are some of them:<\/p>\n