As we grow, you as a trader and us as an exchange, we want to make sure you understand how we put this all together, starting with the network. Our relationship with Stellar as our infrastructure on the blockchain is vital to our operations.

By now you’ve probably seen our home page statement:

Stronghold is the on-ramp and off-ramp to the Stellar Network. We represent Bitcoin and Ethereum on the Stellar Distributed Exchange.

In this post we’ll dive into what this all actually means.

What is the Stellar Distributed Exchange?

The Stellar Protocol includes a built-in distributed exchange known simply as the Stellar network.

Like others on the blockchain, all actors that use the Stellar network — people, payment networks, banks — have equal access and economic capabilities.

But Stellar has a few key aspects that make it unique.

First, the leadership.

The Stellar team includes some of the most highly regarded founders and advisors from Silicon Valley including Jed McCaleb (Ripple), Keith Rabois (Paypal Mafia), Patrick Collison (Stripe), Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress), Naval Ravikant (AngelList) and others.

Most leadership teams like to stay completely behind-the-scenes. Stellar is all about transparency. Their mandate is central to how the team works and develops. Definitely a breath of fresh air in a somewhat shadowy industry.

Second, the system.

Stellar is not a coin, but rather an infrastructure layer for entities to handle payments in the most decentralized way possible.

Its entire infrastructure is such that it can be used for the issuance and trading of assets, including payments. Stellar is open for entities and exchanges (like Stronghold) to use their network and make it available to more audiences.

The results are solutions not just for large corporations, but also for individuals looking for an easier, more transparent way to transfer assets.

Blockchain is the future of financial institutions, and Stellar is helping make it accessible for everyone.

What does it mean to be an anchor to the Stellar network?

An anchor is an entity entrusted to hold deposits and issue credits into the Stellar network for those deposits.

Anchors act as a bridge between existing currencies and the Stellar network. All money transactions in the Stellar network (except for lumens (XLM), Stellar’s native currency) occur in the form of credit issued by anchors like Stronghold.

That’s why we say that we are the on and off-ramp to the Stellar network.

To put it in more familiar terms, Stronghold (the anchor) is like a local bank operating under its parent bank, Stellar (the network).

Except banking with Stellar is a whole hell of a lot more efficient.

Benefits of “Banking” with Stellar

One of Stellar’s most powerful features is the ability to trade any kind of asset.

US dollars, euros, Nigerian naira, bitcoins, special coupons, ICO tokens…just about anything you can think of.

How? Just like the banks.

Rather than actually holding each individual asset, the currencies that Stellar offers are credits from a particular account. If someone (an organization, or even a trusted individual) issues an asset, you can trade it with Stellar by way of Stronghold.

This flexibility lets you make virtually any currency play with as little friction as possible.

Stellar + Stronghold = Power Couple

When you manage your assets with Stronghold, you become part of the Stellar network.

This relationship allows us to take advantage of Stellar’s powerful network that includes near instant transactions and minimal fees and a level of transparency you won’t find with other networks (Stellar’s entire order book is available to the public).

We think it creates a better situation for everyone when all the cards are out on the table.

And there ya go. Stellar + Stronghold in a nutshell.

By partnering with a powerful network that shares our vision, Stronghold is locked and loaded for the future of crypto. It’s happening fast, and we’re glad you’re along for the ride.

This post was originally published on the Stronghold blog.