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What Is XLM / Stellar?
Stellar is a company that was founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim.
Stellar’s goal is to build an open-source protocol for financial transactions which will be fast, reliable, and simple. The Stellar XLM cryptocurrency is one of the main things people are excited about because it has many differences from other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Stellar is based on the idea of consensus. This means that transactions only go through if a majority of the network agrees that they are valid. This is different from Bitcoin which relies on miners to verify and approve transactions.
This makes Stellar much faster than Bitcoin because there is no need to wait for confirmations from miners. Transactions can be approved in as little as five seconds.
Another difference between Stellar and Bitcoin is that all XLM already exist because they were created when the network launched in 2014. In contrast, new Bitcoins are mined with each transaction which requires a lot of computing power and electricity so there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins in existence. XRP cannot be mined but instead 100 billion will be created at the start.
Another difference is that Stellar is much more affordable to use than Bitcoin. You only need a fraction of a penny to send a transaction on the Stellar network compared to about $0.05 for a Bitcoin transaction.
The last key difference between XLM and other cryptocurrencies is that Stellar has a built-in distributed exchange. This means that you can convert your XLM into any other currency on the network without having to go through a third party.