Drazen_ / iStock.com
The brainchild of blockchain, Stellar was co-founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb of Mt. Gox and Ripple fame. In the ensuing years, the project has emerged as a shining example of how blockchain technology can have functional, real-world utility beyond just digital currency.
But is Stellar’s native digital currency — XLM — a worthwhile investment, and what is the XLM price prediction that most analysts are making for the near and long-term future?
Here’s what you need to know before putting your money into play.
What Is Stellar?
Stellar is a decentralized, open-source payment platform that uses blockchain technology to enable its users to transfer funds quickly, securely and inexpensively. It doesn’t favor any one currency. Instead, the platform lets account holders create, send and trade digital representations of all forms of money, like dollars, yen and bitcoin.
The result is a first-of-its-kind network that unites all of the world’s financial systems under one digital roof.
No one owns the platform. Its open-source software is maintained by its users, who have more than 7 million accounts. The Stellar network has processed more than 89 million payments and more than 5 billion total operations — that’s 7.1 million operations every day.
Unlike so many competing platforms, the aim of Stellar is not to replace any form of currency, but to provide a platform where all currencies can work together.
What Is Stellar XLM?
The Stellar network utilizes its own native digital currency called the stellar lumen. The cryptocurrency trades under the symbol XLM.
Stellar requires its account holders to hold a small quantity of lumens at all times, although the lumen requirement is modest and transaction costs are just a fraction of a penny. Stellar’s literature says that both the Lumen requirement and the transaction fees are necessary to ward off bad actors and fraudsters and to eliminate database clutter and spam.
What Is the Current XLM Price Prediction?
XLM broke through the one-cent barrier in 2017 after trading on the open market for nearly three years at a fraction of a penny.
As of Aug. 24, XLM trades at around $0.11, but there were a whole lot of ups and downs in between — and before you put any stock into an XLM price prediction, it’s important to know the history of stellar lumens’ price movement from its inception through the current day.
Like most digital tokens, XLM has shivered through a chilly crypto winter over the last few months. On Jan 1, it was trading at $0.29 — nearly three times where it is today — but that was hardly its high-water mark. When bitcoin was at its all-time high in November 2021, XLM was trading at $0.36. In May, it was trading at a high of $0.72 — exactly twice its November 2021 price and nearly seven times its value today.
In January 2018, XLM was trading at $0.69 — just shy of the all-time high it would reach three and a quarter years later.
However, it spent much of the time in between those two peaks trading way down in the single-digit cents, bottoming out under a nickel. As is the case with so many of its crypto cousins, an investment in stellar lumens is an investment in volatility.
How Much Is XLM Worth in 2025?
No one can predict the future — especially with an investment as turbulent as cryptocurrency — but several analysts expect good things from XLM over the next few years. DigitalCoinPrice predicts that XLM will climb to between $0.13-$0.15 by the end of 2022, $0.14-$0.18 in 2023 and $0.13-$0.20 in 2024.
Three years from now in 2025, the publication forecasts that XLM will hit between a minimum of $0.19 and a maximum of $0.22 for an average of $0.20. If Stellar Lumen does reach the mean forecast of $0.20 by 2025, it will have gained about 85% in three years.
How Much Will XLM Be In 5 Years?
On a slightly more distant horizon of five years, WalletInvestor predicts that XLM will jump to $0.32 in 2027. That’s a gain of roughly 196%. If that forecast proves correct, a $100 investment in XLM today would be worth $295.75 five years from now in 2027.
GovCapital offers a much rosier outlook. It sees XLM going all the way up to around $1.95 by August 2027 — but that’s just the prediction in the middle. Its highball forecast is closer to $2.25.
Can XLM Reach $10?
DigitalCoinPrice predicts that XLM will climb to a maximum of $0.60 nine years from now in 2031, although the publication thinks $0.57 is more likely. The optimistic GovCapital five-year prediction is an outlier — most analysts don’t see XLM breaking the $1 barrier this decade.
While it’s certainly possible that stellar lumens could be trading for $10 or more in the near future, credible experts who are willing to go on the record with such a prediction are hard to come by.
Is XLM a Good Investment in 2022?
Unlike so many cryptocurrencies whose potential for appreciation is based purely on the speculative value of the coin itself, lumens are the native currency for a platform with the promise of growing in value through real-world functionality. Stellar stands out from the many other networks that deliver cheap, fast transactions because it works with any kind of currency.
Since it’s an open-source network, anyone can build on it, including companies that want to create their own cryptocurrencies or digital wallets. Individuals can use it to convert currency to coins or coins to currency, as well as for advanced applications like smart contracts and NFT mining — and none of that is possible without stellar lumens.
You’d Be Following Companies That Already Bet Big on Stellar
Stellar — and therefore its native lumen coin — has earned a great deal of credibility through its impressive list of corporate partnerships. If you do choose to invest in XLM, you’d be following big industry names who have also put their faith in the platform, including:
- Moneygram
- Paymint
- ClickPesa
- SatoshiPay
- settle
- Coinqvest
- Circle
- Von der Heydt
- security
- genesis
- GetPaid
Where Can You Buy Stellar Lumens?
You can buy stellar lumens just as you would any other cryptocurrency on your favorite exchange — most of the major exchanges list XLM among their offerings. Here are just a few of the most popular crypto exchanges where you can buy XLM:
You can also buy lumens directly from Stellar on the StellarX platform.
What Is StellarX?
StellarX is Stellar’s native cryptocurrency exchange. It claims to be the world’s first decentralized exchange that offers gateways to both digital currencies and global fiat currencies. Users can buy lumens and other cryptocurrencies with Visa, Mastercard or Apple Pay. It’s available in more than 100 countries, and if you’re only buying small amounts, no KYC verification is required.
You can also use the platform to trade any currency directly for another. For example, StellarX is the only platform where you can trade Ether for Turkish liras or Swiss francs for Binance Coin, or exchange any form of money directly for any other form of money on Earth.
Users can put their funds to work through the Stellar Automated Market Makers (AMM) program, which lets them earn money for depositing assets into the StellarX liquidity pool. Users can also trade directly with other traders without a middleman brokering the transaction, and they can deposit and withdraw funds — both crypto and fiat — and convert tokens to money all from their wallets through the StellarX app.
StellarX is 100% free to use.
Beware of Stellar Lumens Scams
In 2021, Cyberint reported on a phishing scam that targeted holders of stellar lumens. The fraudsters sent XLM owners a very convincing email that appeared to come directly from Stellar. The message explained that Stellar was conducting a promotional giveaway, airdropping lumens into the accounts of Stellar users as a reward and a promotion.
Users who clicked the link were redirected to an imposter site that mimicked the Stellar domain through the use of what’s called an internationalized domain name (IDN) homograph attack. Once users found their way to the clone IDN site, the scammers encouraged users to reveal their personal data in exchange for the lumens, which, of course, never existed.
Stellar has published and continuously updates a page dedicated to helping its users avoid crypto scams like this one.
final take
No investment is guaranteed, particularly not in the world of cryptocurrency. But many analysts believe that the uniquely useful potential of the Stellar platform makes its native cryptocurrency a digital coin that stands out from the rest.
Conduct your own research, speak with a qualified professional and register for a Stellar account and get to know the platform and its native XLM cryptocurrency before you make up your mind.
Information is accurate as of Aug. 24, 2022.
ViewSources
Our in-house research team and on-site financial experts work together to create content that’s accurate, impartial, and up to date. We fact-check every single statistic, quote and fact using trusted primary resources to make sure the information we provide is correct. You can learn more about GOBankingRates’ processes and standards in our editorial policy.
About the Author
Andrew Lisa has been writing professionally since 2001. An award-winning writer, Andrew was formerly one of the youngest nationally distributed columnists for the largest newspaper syndicate in the country, the Gannett News Service. He worked as the business section editor for amNewYork, the most widely distributed newspaper in Manhattan, and worked as a copy editor for TheStreet.com, a financial publication in the heart of Wall Street’s investment community in New York City.
Comments are closed.