Stellar is a payments network focused on cross-border transactions and payments accessible by anyone and everyone.

Stellar Network, Increasing the Accessibility of Financial Services

Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are said to bring much innovation especially to cross-border transactions. However, slow transaction speeds and high fees of Bitcoin have prevented mass-adoption. Stellar is a payment network focused on developing markets, for example, including money remittance services and other financial institutions targeting “unbanked” individuals in developing countries. Anchors, acting as an intermediary on the network, enable transactions based on the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). Stellar’s SCP and anchors allow payments to be made quickly in just 3 to 5 seconds with anyone anywhere in the world at a minor fee, 0.00001 lumens. Korbit has decided to list Lumens (XLM), the native digital asset of Stellar facilitating the cross-asset transfers of value in a fast and reliable way.

Ripple vs. Stellar

Stellar was co-founded and mainly developed by Jed McCaleb, who split from Ripple Labs Inc., based upon the code originated from Ripple. Even though Stellar and Ripple share many similarities as both Lumens, the native asset of Stellar, and Ripple facilitate multi-currency transactions and act as a bridge between currencies, there are still some significant differences that set them apart in terms of system and operation; Ripple’s goal is to overtake the Swift network behind the majority of the world’s financial and security transfers while Stellar has the noble goal of achieving a more inclusive digital economy. The Ripple network aiming to enable fast mass transactions was created and is being managed by Ripple Labs Inc., a for-profit business, and since the founders of Ripple and Ripple Labs Inc. hold around 45% of XRP and validating nodes in the network are selected by Ripple Labs Inc., the network is considered somewhat centralized. On the other hand, Stellar, which allows users to move money across borders quickly, reliably, and for fractions of a penny, is officially led by the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a registered non-profit incorporated. The foundation controls 5% of all Lumens, and non-profit organizations participating in the network as anchors hold 25%. The network claims to be decentralized with its SCP, which allows any nodes to take part in the network as validating nodes. However, it does not seem to be entirely decentralized yet as the the set of nodes wishing to take part in the network must trust the quorum slice first.

Deposit/withdrawal and trading of XLM will be available on PC website and Android/iOS mobile apps from December 19, 2018.

Compliance Note