To hear the enthusiasts say it, yes, of course, Stellar Lumens (XLM) is heading north.
They’ll tell you that a second Bitcoin rush is coming, and although, like Bitcoin, a few years might have to pass before investors see mega profits, it’s going to happen, period.
It has to be said, even ignoring the enthusiasts and looking at XLM in the cold light of day, they’re probably right. That or a mild form of it is likely going to happen on the back of sentiment around the altcoin’s public image, more than some sudden good news.
But up is up, and once up, Stellar is likely to keep rising to far higher resistance levels, a new home.
Whether the crypto arena is overwhelming you with options, or whether you’re still a newcomer trying to ram all of the conceptual data of decentralized currencies into your head, just know that Stellar Lumens right now is a resurfacing island of value in rough seas.
You don’t even have to understand all of the news or technical details of cryptocurrencies to see it either. Stellar’s modest history to date will do.
As cryptocurrencies mainstream and even legacy retail investors acquaint themselves with decentralized finance (and take a good, hard look at the returns), here’s why Stellar Lumens, based on very conventional news, is looking like a compelling buy right now.
Let’s look at XLM price prediction for 2022 and up to 2025.
Table of Contents
What is Stellar Lumens (XLM)
A relative old boy of the cryptosphere, Stellar Lumens was launched in 2014 by Jed McCaleb, he who co-founded Ripple Labs Inc. McCaleb was joined by Joyce Kim, a former lawyer, in the Stellar project. Stellar of course means “of the stars”, and lumens are the units of measure for luminous flux.
Starlight, if you will, or the light among the stars might be a better way of putting it.
That’s appropriate, because light speed has been an aspiration of Stellar since its launch, or if not quite that fast, at least the fastest transactions possible. Stellar has always been a P2P payments-focused project.
The network effects a successful transaction in around five seconds, to anyone anywhere in the world. Aiming at swift cross-border payments without central control, Stellar focuses exclusively on P2P payments and transfers.
No banks playing with your money on the markets for days on end, and no central control. To that end, Stellar Lumens is a stalwart of the original promise of cryptocurrencies. No more SWIFT payments with banks fiddling with your income (and helping themselves to an ugly slice of it), and no waiting for days to be liquid again.
Users avoid having to open an account, or verifying themselves by submitting all manner of personal documents. They do need an anchor account though (see below), where KYC and AML legislation might apply. Sending money with Stellar is fast, and free of the onerous third party fees legacy payment facilitators invariably charge.
How Does Stellar Lumens Work?
The Stellar Lumens blockchain allows developers to create tokens (typically stablecoins) alongside XLM (more below), and it runs on the Stellar Consensus Protocol.
This in turn uses Byzantine Fault Tolerance to reach consensus. The network itself comprises many data servers in diverse global locales, and a mix of owners, both individuals and company collectives, maintain the servers.
The servers run Stellar core software, which contains the blockchain ledger copy. They communicate with all other network servers, which enables the recording and verification of every transaction that happens on the network.
To use the Stellar network, users will need to create an account. This is done by creating a wallet address. In doing so, users receive public and private keys to manage secure wallet transactions.
Users will also need to fund the wallet with at least 1 lumen (XLM, the blockchain’s token) to cover the nominal transaction fees on the network, themselves a minimum of 0.00001 lumen. The lumens in Stellar architecture essentially act as bridges in a (fiat-)crypto-fiat transaction (explained below).
Stellar has also not been idle, taking the collegial route and partnering with innumerable fintech and other technology companies. This is evident in the next step in using the Stellar Lumens network.
Users need also to have available funds with an anchor, which are fintech companies, money service businesses, or financial institutions. This is because the architecture allows lumens to connect users back to fiats, via their bank account, or cash-out from some other account type.
Stellar Sends Money, Without the Nasty Bite
The ensuing fluidity between currencies is an extremely useful facility, as it essentially connects users to any currency in the world (without the looming poor exchange rate and service fees of a bank).
Once a user has uploaded funds, in their currency, to their anchor account, they can effectively pay anyone anywhere, whatever it might be in the other’s currency, in real time, in their country.
Stellar Lumens is, in effect, to anyone who has watched money-send-type startups attempt to service the great unbanked masses, genuinely successful at providing cash in hand liquidity (and thus financial services) to people who need it.
Stellar isn’t mined, using the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) as opposed to Proof of Work (PoW). All 100 billion XLM tokens were issued upon launch, and the supply of lumens has increased by 1% per annum.
Stellar has decided by community vote to cap the number of coins at 50 billion (down from the original 100 billion), but some 23 billion are available on the open market to trade.Users exchange XLM for BTC and ETH and a host of other altcoins.
No more lumens will be created, and some 30 billion are being kept by the Stellar Development Foundation to better support the network.
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) helps to maintain the network through technical and other support that encompasses marketing and partnership overtures too. A non-profit, it also anticipates regulatory compliance. Right now, Stellar Lumens’ market cap sits at $6,688,272,740.49.
The Big MoneyGram News
Stellar Lumens’ success hinges on global adoption, and that can be a lengthy process, although recent news is good news. Stellar Lumens has partnered with NASDAQ-listed MoneyGram International.
Looking at Stellar’s XLM, it’s had a boisterous year to date. Having closed last year slightly over $0.13, it was touching $0.80 in May 2021. Although it dipped to under $0.20 by July, it’s come back, with some peaks, to now just below $0.30.
The MoneyGram partnership isn’t the first such arrangement announced by Stellar, and they are usually followed by a spike in price.
It’s likely only a matter of time before the Stellar Development Foundation’s core function, business model (and perhaps XLM’s occasionally leaping price) catch the eyes of more heavyweight partners. The thing is, Ripple (XRP) is fast outstripping Stellar with exactly the same model.
Ripple’s offspring in a real sense, Stellar Lumens is up against a company that has a head start, and has made far greater inroads into the very same arena that XLM wishes to dominate. Ripple is having legal tussles with the SEC, but once they’re resolved, there could be blood in the water.
Ripple is focused on institutions and, ultimately, different segments of the money transfer market. Freed up after resolution with the SEC, all it has to do is set its sights on Stellar Lumens’ target market, and it could seriously dent or eliminate XLM as a competitor.
Ripple has income, a far greater market cap of $117+ billion, and two years head start. If there’s a shocker or perhaps death knell in Stellar’s future, it will likely come from XRP, Ripple incarnate.
Then there’s the stablecoin issue…
The Stablecoin Issue
In the agreement, with MoneyGram, the Stellar Development Foundation is to develop a payment bridge to streamline money transfer transactions. It sounds great for a crypto to be rubbing shoulders with a big international legacy provider, but it’s undecided whether XLM will be utilized in the transactions Stellar is facilitating.
Stellar is in partnership with Lightnet, and that fintech outfit also has a partnership with MoneyGram. Lightnet’s focus is Southeast Asia, where millions of migrant workers send money home from various locales, and all of them are stung by legacy bank charges.
While at first glance that would seem an ideal arena for Stellar application, again it’s not clear (and in fact seems kind of 50/50) that XLM will feature in this collaboration at all. Development company Interstellar’s CEO Mike Kennedy (the founder of Zelle, darling crypto facility of banks like JPMorgan Chase) has made it plain that while using XLM is an option, it’s not necessary to include in the project for successful roll out.
The transactability being built by this collaboration is crypto-agnostic－it doesn’t need XLM－and a part of the reason why the Stellar Development Foundation might sanction the omission of XLM in the build is because Stellar Lumens has always been a place for stablecoins to birth and thrive.
Able to eliminate exchange instabilities that might tarnish the seamless (and cheap) transactions of users, stablescoins have been a part of Stellar Lumens’ life since inception.
From Stellar itself: “Stablecoins are a type of digital currency that avoids volatility. They are tokens backed by fixed assets, like gold or fiat currency (government issued money such as the US Dollar). Because Stellar was designed for the express purpose of tokenizing fiat currencies, issuing stablecoins is a native feature of the network. The Stellar platform was designed for stablecoins before stablecoin was even a word.”
MoneyGram, for its part, also has plans to use the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) to pay out on the gateway Stellar is building, so it’s doubly uncertain about XLM’s participation here.for settlement of transactions.
Assuming XLM is not used as the token within the MoneyGram deal, so what? Does that matter?
Yes and no. XLM will get a boost from the business regardless, but this kind of potentially agnostic business development might not be a long term moat for Stellar Lumens.
Ripple challenges loom, and Ripple’s XRP token might for yet unseen reasons find itself far more in line with the moment’s sentiments than a seemingly “floating” token being eclipsed by the stablecoins that surround it.
The far bigger and more embedded competitor could take heavy swipes at Stellar Lumens, made easier if XLM is sidelined in developments and mergers the Stellar Development Foundation undertakes. And made even easier where stablecoins show a strong use case.
On the other hand, it can’t be denied that any business is good business for coins looking for traction, and hobnobbing with legacy players like MoneyGram is likely to drive XLM’s price upwards, whether it’s invited to the party or not.
So… Will XLM Rise in the Near Future?
In a nutshell, why, in spite of this latest twist in projects, would XLM rise and likely rise into double dollar figures, if it ever will?
Sentiment, that’s why.
No one can predict it completely, and sometimes not at all, but looking at people’s historical affections when it comes to investing and (especially) speculation, sentiment is the unseen force driving much of the glory of Bitcoin, for example.
It’s also worth considering the following salient points.
- XLM hit $0.938 on the 4th of January 2018, its highest point ever, and also touched $0.795 very recently.
- Once, Stellar Lumens was ranked in the top ten biggest cryptos by market cap. It’s never been an unknown.
- Hungry eyes from legacy fintech might make sure it it dusts itself off and performs. Hedge funds are always somewhere in the background in fintech, and their modus operandi is to actively engineer medium term dividends. XLM might well find itself in line for a corporate makeover, spelling good news for investors. Vested interests with big money are now a part of the Stellar Lumens universe, like it or not.
A clinical look at the MoneyGram deal might be deflating, but that omits sentiment. If Stellar can walk tall while rubbing shoulders with legacy and current fintech, its tenacity alone might just make it a household name. The same as MoneyGram, perhaps, but better.
It remains to be seen whether a project can really scale up by rote association time and time again, in every nook and cranny of the fintech world, such schmoozing being what makes Stellar Lumens stronger and stronger.
And it remains to be seen whether emerging consumer sentiment sees Stellar’s association with legacy money houses as a good or bad thing, but it’s probably going to be positive.
Stellar Lumens Price Predictions Until 2025
Recent graphs analyzing Stellar’s performance point quite clearly to a bearish existence transforming to a far more bullish outlook. Currently ranked in 17th place by CoinMarketCap, XLM is still the dark green envy of hundreds of other altcoins out there.
Recent higher trading volumes and the technical time frame both point to a likely XLM wake up and rise. Moving averages show that Stellar’s swings of late keep pushing up to highs greater than the one that preceded it－a classic sign of an asset bouncing up on market sentiment.
That said, XLM’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) is sitting at 38.21, meaning the coin is oversold right now. This could precipitate a snap correction at any moment, and SDF had better keep piling on the good news to plow right through that if it happens, unlikely though it might be.
Stellar’s bullish moves are supported by the fact that fluctuations are quickly followed by almost immediate consolidation and correction, indicating a dynamic asset set on competing aggressively into next year’s markets.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction 2022
Still conservative for the cryptosphere but an almost 100% gain from current levels, XLM looks set to reach $0.5 by the close of 2022. The first part of the year is likely to see XLM hit $0.55 in moments, and although it will slow thereafter, no slump is anticipated. This is an optimistic projection, but well supported by the current realities.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction 2023
Again very modest (and assuming price action is relatively stable and XLM holds its 200-day moving average unambiguously), a prediction of $0.06 for 2023 is well supported by the facts. This will only happen off a base of relative stability, however, but it seems the most likely progression.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction 2024
Looking further ahead, and looking at the actions of the SDF, we can expect partnerships and other business innovation to carry XLM a step higher in 2024, to $0.07 on the back of expansion via those partnerships and diverse integration elsewhere.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction 2025
Over the next few years, based on historical movements, current developments, and the coin’s current rank, it’s not unreasonable to look for a price of $0.09 in 2025.
This is a very measured prediction, and other wholesale market forces might boost cryptocurrencies as a phenomenon massively, or scatter investors in a panic. This could create a sudden meteoric rise for XLM, as it’s ideally positioned within its arena to provide reassurance and poster child celebrity to a fractured market.
It’s unlikely to go the other way, however, and its gains won’t be eroded by the same hypothetical turmoil that would see it breakout like a wild colt.
That’s that sentiment part of investing, and if enough people start organically chatting about Stellar Lumens or a sly legacy fund shows interest and pumps up chatter, things could be far greater.
That’s the attractiveness of XLM right now. A good if slow forward projection, with an almost non-return valve in place to inhibit dramatic failures of price.
Stellar is growing up now, keeping respectable company on legacy terms, and simply needs to gain mass (price) to reflect this.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction: Last Words
For those who like a simple answer (especially to a question like “Should I right now buy Stellar Lumens?”!), the answer is, yes. By many metrics, Stellar can look forward to a bright future.
It’s not a coin being built in mom’s garage anymore, dreaming of one day becoming a someone. It has gained tremendous legitimacy over the last while, and smacks of a crypto that has always had that latent potential, and just needed to find the right environment in which to flourish.
In the here and now, investors can expect nominal movements in the next three months up to a maximum that touches on $0.50
With the current ongoing developments within the Stellar Lumens ecosystem, on top of crypto at large beginning a journey of mainstreaming with society, XLM is going up.
If sentiment plays it’s sometimes quick and powerful role, that will only aid XLM, as it’s incredibly unlikely to be anything other than positive, and possibly very positive.