So you have decided to check out Stellar? Welcome!

You may find that Stellar has better tech, is more open, inclusive, and its not for profit mission resonates with you. This article is not trying to convince you but give some tips on things you need to know.

In Particular Stellar offers:

A Documented Consensus Protocol

A Developing country focus

Great Dev community - giving coins to developers/Postgresql/XDR Standards

Will never fork

Distributed, open and rapidly growing community

Many concepts are the similar to Ripple:

Stellar Anchor = Gateway

Currently there are Anchors for a few currency pairs including EUR, CNY, BTC, and JPY.

Check out this article for more about anchors

https://galactictalk.org/d/14-projects-built-on-stellar

Stellar Memo Field = Tag

There are 3 types of Memo fields in Stellar. The one you will probably only ever yourself is TEXT. When you send Stellar to Poloniex, BTC38, Kraken, or Bittrex they will ask you to include the Memo field.

For TEMPO which does payout in 47 countries use the TEXT MEMO field for the transaction number you already created in their system. http://tempo.eu.com

What is a Validator?

Validators are nodes on the network which validate the transactions and keep the blockchain in sync. To see a list visit: http://stellar.network/

What is STR and how does it differ from XLM?

STR is what Poloniex calls the internal token XLM. Most other exchanges and systems are using the XLM name. XLM plays a similar function to that of XRP in Ripple. It is an internal Token that removes risk from counterparties and helps with liquidity.

What is the consensus algorithm Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) and how does it work?

SCP is the guts of how Stellar processes transactions in a distributed, secure and fair manner:

https://www.stellar.org/developers/guides/concepts/scp.html

What is Horizon?

Horizon is nice web interface written in the go programming language that allows you to interact with the stellar-core engine. In particular many of the development tools use it for looking up data and submitting transactions.

What are the Stellar Developer Challenges?

These are quarterly awards given to the development community. Check out more here:

https://www.stellar.org/blog/build-winners-jan17

What is Stellar's not for profit mission?

Its mission is to expand financial access and literacy worldwide.

https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/

How can I check out the status of a transaction?

Check out the nice blockchain explorer: https://stellarchain.io

What next?

Check out the apps ? Try sending and receiving?

We recommend "Stellar Desktop Client/StellarChat" as a decent first test. Centaurus is a nice wallet that gives rewards:

https://galactictalk.org/d/14-projects-built-on-stellar

https://github.com/stellarchat/desktop-client/releases/tag/1.4

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.xcoins.centaurus&hl=en

Write some code or play with the easy api:

https://www.stellar.org/developers/reference/

https://www.stellar.org/developers/tools/

Get involved with the community:

https://www.stellar.org/community/

Thanks!