Stellar

Stellar is an open-source blockchain network for payments, asset issuance and smart contracts. Its native asset is the lumen (XLM). The network is supported by the nonprofit Stellar Development Foundation, whose 2014 launch announcement described an open protocol for transferring value between currencies.

History and organization

Stellar began in 2014. The launch announcement identified Jed McCaleb and David Mazières as leading protocol development and Joyce Kim as the foundation's executive director. Stripe provided initial funding. The foundation's retained previous mandate records this as a US$3 million loan in 2014, later repaid with two billion lumens. MIT Media Lab's profile identifies Kim as a co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation.

The project initially used technology developed for Ripple. In April 2015, the foundation published Mazières's Stellar Consensus Protocol paper, describing a construction of federated Byzantine agreement. The network changed its consensus system and relaunched in 2015.

Consensus

The Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) allows validators to agree on ledger updates using federated Byzantine agreement. Each validator selects a quorum set and threshold describing which other validators it relies on. A quorum slice is a sufficient subset of that set. This differs from selecting influence through proof-of-work mining or staked currency.

Trust configuration matters. SCP prioritizes safety over continued progress when nodes cannot reach the required agreement, so ledger progress can stop. Validators receive no monetary protocol reward for participating.

Lumens and supply history

XLM pays transaction fees, meets account minimum-balance requirements and funds smart-contract storage rent. It is distinct from assets issued by other network participants. Unlike issued Stellar assets, XLM does not require an issuer or trustline.

The original supply was 100 billion lumens. The network initially had annual inflation of 1%; validators ended that mechanism on 28 October 2019. On 4 November 2019, the foundation made about 55.44 billion lumens inaccessible, reducing its holdings. Total supply and circulating supply are different measures: foundation-held lumens, upgrade reserves and the fee pool are accounted for separately in the network's supply documentation.

Issued assets and trustlines

Stellar supports account-issued assets and programmable contract tokens. Account-issued assets use trustlines and native operations, with issuer controls; the built-in Stellar Asset Contract provides an interface for using those assets in smart contracts. Contract tokens implement their own logic and storage. Representing an asset on Stellar does not by itself describe the issuer's obligations or a holder's legal rights.

An account-issued asset is identified by both its code and its issuing account. Two issuers can use the same code, such as USD, without creating the same asset. The issuer's identity therefore matters as well as the displayed symbol. Classic assets are issued by Stellar accounts, whereas contract tokens are created through deployed contracts.

A trustline records an account's willingness to hold a particular issued asset, including a limit on the balance. Accounts also require XLM reserves for ledger entries such as trustlines. Smart-contract data instead pays storage rent. Trustlines are part of the ledger's asset model; they do not make different issuers' obligations interchangeable.

For example, in October 2026 Centrifuge and Janus Henderson announced JQQQ, a tokenized fund seeking to track the Nasdaq-100, initially on Stellar. The announcement limits availability to eligible investors and excludes U.S. persons; it is not a description of unrestricted access to the underlying shares.

Payments, anchors and exchange

Anchors connect Stellar assets to external payment systems. They are typically financial institutions or fintech services that accept deposits through bank or cash networks and deliver digital tokens, or redeem tokens for the assets they represent. An anchor may issue its own asset or support one issued by another organization.

Stellar Ecosystem Proposals (SEPs) specify interfaces used by anchors, wallets and other services. Examples include SEP-6 for programmatic deposits and withdrawals, SEP-24 for hosted deposit and withdrawal flows, and SEP-31 for cross-border payments. These interfaces coordinate services around the network; they do not themselves replace the external institution or its redemption process.

Stellar also has a protocol-level decentralized exchange. The ledger stores account balances and offers to buy or sell assets. Order books match compatible offers, while liquidity pools provide another source of liquidity. Path payments can use these mechanisms to convert between the asset a sender supplies and the asset a recipient receives. Available offers and pool liquidity constrain the conversions that can actually be executed.

Accounts and transactions

An account can hold balances, issue assets and sign transactions. Stellar transactions contain operations that change ledger state and must carry the necessary signatures. Traditional transactions can bundle operations; transactions invoking smart contracts follow a separate operation limit. Account signature weights and authorization thresholds are permissions in the account model, distinct from the quorum configuration used by validators for consensus.

Smart contracts

On 19 March 2024, the foundation announced that Soroban was live on Stellar mainnet, adding general smart-contract applications to the network's existing payment and asset capabilities.

Stellar's smart-contract tooling includes the Soroban Rust SDK and a host environment for deploying and executing contracts. Smart contracts add programmable application logic to the network; they are distinct from the consensus mechanism that validators use to agree on ledger updates.

External links

• Stellar Development Foundation
• Stellar developer documentation