Stellar Lumens (XLM) is now the world’s tenth largest cryptocurrency following a surge of 30% on New Year’s Day. The altcoin’s market cap has more than doubled in the span of a few weeks as investors rallied behind XLM’s strong value proposition as a cheaper, faster and customizable platform.
XLM Price Levels
Stellar’s native Lumen assets spiked 31% on Monday to $0.4547 U.S., according to CoinMarketCap, putting it on track for its highest settlement on record. The cryptocurrency reached a session high of $0.4670 at around 6:44 UTC.
Trading volume in XLM approached $439 million over the span of 24 hours, which is equivalent to roughly 32,965 bitcoin. Most of the transactions took place on just two platforms – Bittrex and Poloniex – with the likes of Binance, Kraken and Bitcoin Indonesia processing a smaller percentage of the daily turnover. The XLM/BTC and STR/BTC pairs were responsible for most of the activity.
At present values, Stellar is capitalized at $8.1 billion, placing it among the world’s top-ten cryptos and ahead of Monero, NEO and bitcoin gold.
The total market cap for all cryptocurrencies rose to $600 billion on Monday following a sharp decline during the previous session.
Strategic Partnerships, Promising Platform Drive XLM
Major partnerships with banks and technology companies have contributed to Stellar’s six-fold increase in the span of a month. Dow blue chip IBM recently announced it would provide the Stellar network with eight new validators spread across the globe. Stellar’s founder Jed McCaleb also confirmed that some 30 banks would join the IBM project. (For the uninitiated, McCaleb is the brains behind Ripple and Mt Gox.)
The Stellar platform has also unveiled new partnerships aimed at boosting cross-border payments, monetizing online businesses and streamlining FX/crypto transactions. There’s also strong reason to believe Stellar could become a more viable platform for businesses seeking to raise capital via initial coin offerings (ICOs). In November, Smartlands became the first ICO to launch on the Stellar platform. We’ve speculated before that other ICOs may follow suit to capitalize on Stellar’s customization and security features, not to mention lower costs and faster transaction speeds.
As far as altcoins are concerned, XLM is emerging as one of the most attractive from an investment standpoint. As the crypto market matures and investors diversify away from bitcoin, XLM could be poised to reap the benefits.
Source: Hacked