Stellar is a blockchain network that lets you create, store and send any digital currencies of your choice. You can create tokens for traditional currencies, crypto, or even securities. Pretty much any asset.

The platform integrates different payment entities. It's "designed so all the world's financial systems can work together on a single network."

What Currency Does the Stellar Network Use?

Stellar has a native currency called Lumens (XLM). Lumens are used to pay for transaction costs on the network. There's a minimum of 0.00001 Lumens fee that you need to pay per transaction.

At the time of writing, you need less than a thousandth of a dollar to send Lumens to another wallet, making Stellar one of the cheapest blockchains for you to transfer crypto.

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Better yet, transactions on the network take an average of five seconds to be completed. This makes Stellar a viable blockchain for efficiently moving money.

It's important to note that Stellar requires you always to have a minimum balance of 1 XLM to protect the network from spam. It acts somewhat like a barrier to entry, albeit a very low one.

There's a total of 50 billion Lumens in supply. About 20 billion are out in open circulation, while 30 billion are held by the Stellar Development Foundation to develop and promote Stellar.

How Does the Stellar Network Work?

Stellar was built to allow the world's financial systems to freely interoperate. For example, you can integrate SEPA, ACH & SPEI transactions on the network.

Stellar allows you to do this by providing you with the ability to create digital fiat tokens. In addition, the platform provides several regulated financial entities that can enable the integration of traditional financial systems with the Stellar network.

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These Stellar-based fintech companies are known as Anchors. They provide a 1:1 token to fiat value which can be redeemed at any time. Even better, each token is backed by a fiat equivalent in a bank.

The Future of Stellar Lumens

As Stellar aims to support currencies of all kinds, it has great potential for supporting economies in developing nations. Users can add any currency to the network as a token, bringing some form of banking and digital transaction potential to those with access to traditional banking facilities.