What is Stellar? How It Works & Where to Use It

How it works

Settlement in seconds, without mining.

Stellar keeps one shared record of balances and orders that independent nodes agree on every few seconds. There are no miners and no stakers, so the energy cost is negligible. Four ideas make that work.

The shared ledger

Every balance, trustline and order lives in one public ledger, rebuilt and agreed every few seconds. Anyone can run a node and verify it.

Consensus, not mining

Nodes pick quorum slices of peers they trust, and the network advances when those slices overlap into agreement. No Proof of Work, no Proof of Stake, no block rewards.

Tiny fixed fees

Each operation costs a base fee of 0.00001 XLM, charged only to deter spam. Fees are collected into a pool rather than paid to a miner, keeping transfers cheap and predictable.

Fixed supply

Stellar has a fixed supply of 50 billion XLM since the network stopped inflation in 2019. No new XLM is ever issued, so account holders are not diluted over time.

How consensus closes a ledger

1

Broadcast

You send XLM. The transaction is signed with your private key and broadcast to the network, where nodes collect it into a set of candidate operations for the next ledger.

2

Agree

Each node weighs proposals against its quorum slices, the peers it trusts. The Stellar Consensus Protocol drives those overlapping slices toward one shared set of operations.

3

Close

The agreed operations are applied and a new ledger is closed, about every 5 seconds. Once closed the result is final, there are no confirmations to wait for.

The layers under the hood

Base layer

The ledger, accounts and reserves

Balances, trustlines and orders are tracked directly in the ledger. Each account holds a small XLM reserve (1 XLM base, plus 0.5 XLM per item) to keep the ledger compact.

Consensus

The Stellar Consensus Protocol

Nodes choose quorum slices of trusted peers and reach agreement every few seconds through Federated Byzantine Agreement. Honest behavior needs no reward, so there is no mining or staking issuance.

Built-in features

Native DEX, asset issuance and Soroban

A decentralized exchange, fiat-backed and other issued assets, and the Soroban smart contract platform are part of the protocol stack rather than bolted on as a separate layer.

What it supports natively

Issued assets, stablecoins and tokens via trustlines
Built-in DEX, on-ledger order books and path payments
Soroban contracts, a Rust-based smart contract platform
Anchors & on/off ramps, bridging local currency to the ledger

Stellar bakes payment, exchange and issuance features into the protocol itself, so common actions stay cheap and predictable, with Soroban available for custom logic.

Adoption & usage

Activity you can measure.

Live, on-chain numbers that show Stellar's scale and how it is secured, the usage, agreement and reliability behind it, not the price.

View on stellar.expert

Network activity

Total operations7B+All-time

Daily operations5.8M7-day average

Ledgers closed55M+~5s per ledger

Base fee$0.00000250.00001 XLM per op

Daily payments · last 12 months+112%

Rising activity. Daily payments have climbed over the past year as stablecoin transfers and on/off ramp usage on the network grew, with quieter months in between.

Daily active accounts~60K

Unique accounts transacting each day, a proxy for real economic use against 8.2M funded accounts in total.

Security · Consensus protocol

Validators100+Independent nodes

Agreement modelQuorum slicesFBA · overlapping

Block rewardsNoneNo mining or staking

Supply trendFixedNo inflation since 2019

Reliability

Continuous ledger production since the upgraded network launched in 2015

Stellar has closed a new ledger every few seconds for years. Independent validators on overlapping quorum slices keep any single operator from changing balances or reversing settled payments.

May 2019The network briefly stopped closing ledgers for about two hours after several validators in the same quorum went offline together. It recovered once enough validators reconnected, and the event prompted more diverse, less concentrated quorum sets. No funds were affected.

Ecosystem

What Stellar is used for.

The network is focused on payments, asset issuance and exchange, with features built into the protocol. Here is where it is actually used, and how it reaches into the wider crypto economy.

dashboard.stellar.org

Payments & remittance

Fast, low-cost transfers and cross-border remittances are the network's original purpose, with path payments that convert between assets in a single step.

Native DEX

On-ledger order books have run since launch, letting anyone trade issued assets against XLM or each other directly on the network.

Fiat-backed stablecoins

Issued assets cover fiat-backed stablecoins, including USDC on Stellar, which anchors connect to local currency through on and off ramps.

Soroban & anchors

Soroban smart contracts add custom logic, while anchors bridge banks and payment systems to the ledger, so builders connect local money to crypto.

Where activity sits on the network

1$USDC on StellarFiat-backed stablecoinLargest

2DNative DEXOn-ledger tradingBuilt-in

3SSoroban contractsSmart contractsGrowing

4AAnchors & on/off rampsLocal currency bridgesActive

5LSoroban liquidity poolsDeFi · on-networkGrowing

A protocol built for issuance

Unlike chains where every asset is a separate contract, Stellar issues assets natively through trustlines and trades them on a built-in DEX. Learn the basics in our crypto basics guides.

Ecosystem at a glance

Stablecoins issued$1.2BFiat-backed on network

Funded accounts8.2MAll-time

In the Zypto App

Hold, send and spend XLM.

Stellar is integrated. Self-custody XLM, send it in seconds for a tiny fee, swap to any supported asset, and spend XLM through Zypto Pay.

Available in the Zypto App · native asset & issued assets

Stellar LumensXLM$0.25+0.9%

Stellar stablecoinsIssued on network

Stellar assetsTrustline assets

Stellar's native asset is XLM. Issued assets (stablecoins, tokenized assets) live on the network as trustline balances and are held in self-custody, your keys, your coins.

Get XLM in Zypto App

Be the reason Stellar ships next.

Stellar isn't in the Zypto App yet. Post the request to your followers and ask them to add their voice, we prioritize the chains with the most demand. Everything above stays fully live either way.

Request on X Browse integrated chains

Accepted as Payment

XLMAccepted as Payment

Stellar stablecoinsNot yet acceptedRequest →

Pay bills, top-ups and 24,000+ products with XLM through Zypto Pay. Transactions settle in seconds for a tiny network fee.

Swap & convert

CChangeNow LLetsExchange SSwapKit ZIn-app DEX

Native on-network DEX XLM settles natively on Stellar. The network's own DEX trades XLM against issued assets directly, and path payments convert between them in a single step, with no separate bridge needed for on-network swaps.

Swap XLM to any supported asset in seconds. Zypto routes the best path automatically across these providers and the in-app DEX.

History & FAQ

A decade of payments, plainly told.

Key milestones

2014

Network founded

Stellar launches with the Stellar Development Foundation set up as a nonprofit to steward the open network.

2015

SCP upgrade

The network moves to the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a Federated Byzantine Agreement design with quorum slices and no mining or staking.

2019

Inflation stopped

On-chain inflation ends and a large share of XLM is burned, fixing total supply at 50 billion.

2021

USDC on Stellar

A fiat-backed USD stablecoin launches on the network, growing into one of its most used issued assets for payments and remittances.

2024

Soroban on mainnet

The Soroban smart contract platform goes live on the public network, adding a Rust-based contract layer to the existing payment features.

Key facts

Launched2015

Native assetXLM (lumens)

ConsensusConsensus protocol (SCP)

Ledger close~5 seconds

Total supply50,000,000,000 XLM

Smallest unit1 stroop (1e-7 XLM)

Base reserve1 XLM + 0.5 per item

Built-inDEX · Issuance · Soroban

PaymentsConsensusLayer 1Native DEXStablecoins

What is Stellar in one sentence?

Stellar is a public, decentralized blockchain built for payments and asset issuance, settling in about five seconds for a tiny fee, with no mining or staking and a fixed supply of 50 billion XLM, its native asset.

What is the difference between Stellar and XLM?

Stellar is the blockchain, the shared network and software. XLM, also called lumens, is the native asset that lives on it, used to pay the small operation fee, meet account reserves and bridge between currencies on the built-in exchange.

How does Stellar reach agreement without mining?

It uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a Federated Byzantine Agreement design. Each node chooses quorum slices of peers it trusts, and the network advances a new ledger when those slices overlap into agreement. There is no Proof of Work, no Proof of Stake, and no block rewards, so the energy cost is very low.

Where does new XLM come from?

It doesn't. Stellar stopped on-chain inflation in 2019 and fixed the total supply at 50 billion XLM, so no new XLM is ever issued. Operation fees are collected into a network pool rather than minted as new supply.

Is Stellar available in the Zypto App?

Yes. You can hold and self-custody XLM, send it in seconds, swap it, and spend it through Zypto Pay. For live prices and charts, see the XLM price page.

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