There is a growing trend for cryptocurrency projects to adopt the Stellar blockchain for creating platforms and launching tokens. Stellar’s blockchain ecosystem gained mainstream attention with the latest announcement by the Kin Foundation which stated that the popular messaging app now plans to fork Stellar to build out its own blockchain.

Ethereum is quickly approaching a crossroads as it begins to face increased regulatory scrutiny regarding its classification as an asset, many now look to alternative platforms to launch tokens and Stellar is emerging as a clear option.

Why Stellar?

When you compare the Ethereum and Stellar protocols, you can understand the appeal of building on the Stellar network. In its current state, Ethereum’s average transaction confirmation time is around 10-15 minutes, whereas Stellar’s is three to five seconds. What’s more, Stellar’s protocol is able to conduct over 3,000 transactions per second compared to Ethereum’s seven per second.

While Ethereum is hoping to solve their scaling issues through innovations like sharding or Plasma, Stellar has quietly begun to attract higher quality ICOs.

Stellar’s increasing popularity has led to a massive increase in value over the last year. Stellar Lumens (XLM) currently trades at $0.37 ($6.98B market cap), up 925% from last year’s price of $0.04 ($25M). As we review the current Stellar landscape, we look to understand the past and future ICOs that underpin the project’s ever-growing valuation.

Here is a list of projects that have already or plan on using the Stellar blockchain to conduct an ICO.

Notable Completed Stellar ICOs

SmartLands: The platform will eliminate the barriers for investors from all over the world and provide unique opportunity to finance the introduction of agtech innovations by applying blockchain technology to solve problems typical for classical financial markets. Thus, the functioning of the Platform will have a positive impact on the achievement of sustainable development of agriculture and the world economy in general.

Date: November 20, 2017

November 20, 2017 Amount Raised: $1,753,698

Mobius (MOBI): Mobius closes the gap between the internet world and blockchain world through innovative and simple protocols that introduce new standards for cross-blockchain login, payment, governance, and oracles.

Date: January 18, 2018

January 18, 2018 Amount Raised: $35,000,000

SureRemit: Connects immigrants abroad directly with merchants that provide the services needed by their loved ones back home. With Remit tokens, immigrants all over the world can access digital shopping vouchers that can be spent by loved ones on goods and services at accepting merchants wherever they are. They can also pay for hundreds of utility bills and mobile airtime credits directly from the SureRemit application.

Date: February 10, 2018

February 10, 2018 Amount Raised: $10,000,000

Mad Network (MAD): The Mad Network is a set of decentralized applications designed to seamlessly connect every stakeholder within the complex adtech value chain.

Date: March 1, 2018

March 1, 2018 Amount Raised: $25,000,000

Pinnacle Brilliance: Brilliance is a Stellar based token that will be used within Pinnacle, a full-featured investment app, that will connect all other major exchanges and brokerages into a single access point for the first time in history.

Date: April 25, 2018

April 25, 2018 Amount Raised: $2,000,000

Upcoming Stellar ICOs

Irene Energy: Renewable electricity supplier with global ambitions. Uses the Stellar blockchain to pioneer what they call “radical transparency” in the electricity supply chain. Radical transparency is about giving to consumers the means to control exactly what happens with their electricity spending – and with it, the means to control their impact in the fight against global warming.

Start Date: March 2018; currently ongoing.

March 2018; currently ongoing. Hard Cap: $24,000,000

Ternio: Ternio is a blockchain based utility token built to transform and ultimately disrupt the $224 billion per year digital advertising market through a multifaceted approach. Incentives and the general ecosystem are not aligned causing both advertisers and publishers to feel they are on the losing side of the deal. Ternio provides a verifiable and decentralized asset that empowers advertisers to verify spend through each intermediary and gives publishers the assurance and guarantee of being paid on delivery.

Start Date: April 2018; currently ongoing.

April 2018; currently ongoing. Hard Cap: $40,000,000

SIX.Network: SIX was originated from ‘one’ of the largest digital media startup groups in Korea and Thailand, OOKBEE U Company Limited and Yello Digital Marketing Global PTE LTD. SIX.Network uses blockchain technology and smart contract to reinvent the digital economy by building a better infrastructure; SIX Digital Asset Wallet, Decentralized Financial Services, and Wallet-to-Wallet (W2W) Decentralized Commerce. With this economic infrastructure, SIX can create an ecosystem that is transparent, fair, secure, and efficient for all stakeholders in the digital and creative economy.

Start Date: April 3, 2018; currently ongoing.

April 3, 2018; currently ongoing. Hard Cap: $15,000,000

AXenS: Runs on an enterprise-grade Blockchain Technology to support global trade activities with the tools needed to participate in the most highly-available and highly-scalable network where logistical and supply chain services, financial and insurance services, government agencies and customs authorities can inter-operate and collaborate in the most secure way.

Start Date: April 16, 2018; currently ongoing.

April 16, 2018; currently ongoing. Hard Cap: $50,000,000

CrossHedge: Cross Hedge is a team of highly experienced financial industry professionals with a unified passion for uncompromising technology. Their core investment philosophy is to maximize diversification empowered by technology and Artificial intelligence in order to provide absolute returns through Smartpieces™.

Start Date: May 22, 2018

May 22, 2018 Hard Cap: $85,500,000

Tontine Trust: The Future of Retirement Funding is Fully Regulated Peer-to-Peer Tontines secured by the Blockchain. TontineTrust is developing a blockchain based, community-driven retirement funding platform which removes the cost layers involved in traditional longevity risk solutions such as life-annuities. Here’s why they chose to build on Stellar.

Start Date: June 4, 2018

June 4, 2018 Hard Cap: N/A

LocalXpose: LocalXpose is a platform of distributed nodes around the world (countries that allow inbound connections) ready to rent their bandwidth and ports for the blocked nodes so they can expose locally hosted services, which helps in building economic system while using port forwarding service.

Start Date: June 20, 2018

June 20, 2018 Hard Cap: $2,250,000

Is your Stellar-based ICO missing from this list? Contact us to be reviewed for inclusion.

Final Take

Ethereum still dwarfs Stellar with hundreds of ICOs staged in the last year, and it would take a major shift within the crypto community for Stellar to grab a significant market share from Ethereum. However, given the increasing uncertainty surrounding Ethereum’s classification, network congestion and Stellar’s current protocol advantage, it’s not out of the question to see this movement continue to gain strength.

Project Descriptions and ICO Info: ICO Bench

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Disclaimer: The author(s) of this article may have a position in one or more of the securities mentioned above. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.