Stellar (XLM) is a cross-border payments platform aiming to connect the financial ecosystem through faster, cheaper payments and transfers.

Founded by the Stellar Development Foundation, Stellar aims to facilitate transactions using digital representations of currencies like USD and Bitcoin on a blockchain network used globally by financial entities and merchants.

Stellar’s payment network is fully-decentralised, meaning that no intermediary can stop transactions from being made and new entities from onboarding to the Stellar ecosystem. The payments network can also operate without an intermediary and on a 24/7 basis so businesses can send and receive payments globally at any time.

Stellar’s native token, the Lumen (XLM), is used for staking to secure the network and verify transactions whilst also providing the payment method for sending transfers and payments to others. It pays for transaction fees and also helps to facilitate multi-currency transactions, which prevents network spam.