Stellar (XLM) has been on a bit of a rampage lately, announcing new partnerships and products almost every week. This in turn has helped pump up the price of the altcoin so much so that it’s managed to overtake EOS as the number five cryptocurrency by market capitalization. In all fairness, there are a lot more XLM tokens up for grabs than there are EOS, meaning a greater price is required by EOS than XLM to grab fifth place. In the past seven days, XLM has climbed over 8% and hit highs of $0.28 in a session this week
Partnering with IBM
Stellar is a payment remittance blockchain and protocol, and is dubbed as one of the fastest out there. Transaction times with XLM take around four seconds to complete, a far cry from Bitcoin’s sluggish 10 minutes. Due to this speedy nature, IBM has partnered with Stellar Labs to create a global blockchain payment network worthy of rivaling SWIFT. The Blockchain World Wire is designed to bring fast, low-cost transactions to people all around the globe.
A Free Decentralized Crypto Exchange
Another feather in Stellar’s cap is its very own free to use, decentralized crypto exchange. Interstellar hosts more than 50 trading pairs including a number of stablecoins. While it’s still in its infancy, by removing trade fees, Interstellar is quickly gaining popularity in the cryptosphere. Unfortunately, little to no vetting has been done with the cryptos and a few known scams are still available to trade. One of those scams is Maltese Scudo which we outed as a scam back in October. After being reported to the exchange and the Malta Financial Services Authority, the scam still roams wild – begging the question, who is really behind it?
EOS Apps Keep Getting Hacked
One factor that is working against EOS at the moment is the perpetual hacking of several EOS platforms. EOSBet has been hacked using the same method twice in as many months, with hackers swiping a ton of EOS tokens from the platform. This is beginning to harm the cryptocurrency’s value, as there are a lot of illicitly gained tokens floating around right now. Hopefully, the platform has learned its lesson and has fixed the major bug in the code.
The future for Stellar looks bright, as more companies are looking to partner with it with every passing day. Its high speed and low-cost transactions make it an ideal partner for cross-border payments, and is already making inroads in the Middle East. It’s only a matter of time before XLM heads to the moon and takes the number four spot from Craig Wright and Roger Ver’s controversial Bitcoin Cash.
