Stellar Lumens or XLM has been soaring up since last Christmas day, and only in the past 24 hours, it’s been up another 65%, approaching the $1.00 level versus the USD. They aim to be a one-stop shop in the financial world, where with just one integration into the Stellar Network, everyone including, payment networks, banks and market participants have equal economic access economic. Stellar operates a network with the blockchain technology behind bitcoin. But unlike Bitcoin, Stellar's transactions settle in 2 to 5 seconds and allow users to quickly exchange government-backed currencies, such as turning U.S. dollars into euros. Stellar coins are officially called lumens or XLM for short when traded in the crypto exchanges. Some analysts argue that Stellar could be the next Ripple. In 2014, one of Ripple’s key management members, McCaleb, left Ripple to join Stellar. While Ripple and Stellar have many similarities, such as employing a native cryptocurrency and conducting fast and cheap cross-border payments, they do have some differences. The biggest one is in their respective intended use cases. In which Ripple is going after big banks, while Stellar is going after individuals. If Stellar can follow Ripple’s footsteps and prove that its alternative use case can survive the markets, there’s no reason XLM can’t catch up to XRP this year
