The Stellar network is an open source, distributed, and community owned network used to facilitate cross-asset transfers of value. Stellar aims to help facilitate cross-asset transfer of value at a fraction of a penny while aiming to be an open financial system that gives people of all income levels access to low-cost financial services. Stellar can handle exchanges between fiat-based currencies and between cryptocurrencies. Stellar.org, the organization that supports Stellar, is centralized like XRP and meant to handle cross platform transactions and micro transactions like XRP. However, unlike Ripple, Stellar.org is non-profit and their platform itself is open source and decentralized. Stellar was founded by Jed McCaleb in 2014. Jed McCaleb is also the founder of Mt. Gox and co-founder of Ripple, launched the network system Stellar with former lawyer Joyce Kim. Stellar is also a payment technology that aims to connect financial institutions and drastically reduce the cost and time required for cross-border transfers. In fact, both payment networks used the same protocol initially. Distributed Exchange Through the use of its intermediary currency Lumens (XLM), a user can send any currency that they own to anyone else in a different currency. For instance, if Joe wanted to send USD to Mary using her EUR, an offer is submitted to the distributed exchange selling USD for EUR. This submitted offer forms is known as an order book. The network will use the order book to find the best exchange rate for the transaction in-order to minimize the fee paid by a user. This multi-currency transaction is possible because of "Anchors". Anchors are trusted entities that hold people’s deposits and can issue credit. In essence, Anchors serves as the bridge between different currencies and the Stellar network. Lumens (XLM) Lumens are the native asset (digital currency) that exist on the Stellar network that helps to facilitate multi-currency transactions and prevent spams. For multi-currency transactions, XLM is the digital intermediary that allows for such a transaction to occur at a low cost. In-order to prevent DoS attacks (aka spams) that would inevitably occur on the Stellar network, a small fee of 0.00001 XLM is associated with every transaction that occurs on the network. This fee is small enough so it does not significantly affect the cost of transaction, but large enough so it dissuades bad actors from spamming the network. Prior to Protocol 12, Stellar had a built-in inflation mechanism conceived to allow account holders to collectively direct inflation-generated lumens toward projects built on Stellar. As the network evolved and grew, it became increasingly clear that inflation wasn’t working as intended — account holders either didn’t set their inflation destination or joined inflation pools to claim the inflation themselves, and the operational costs associated with inflation payments continued to rise — and so a protocol change to disable inflation was proposed, implemented, voted on by validators, and ultimately adopted as part of a network upgrade. The inflation operation is now deprecated. https://developers.stellar.org/docs/glossary/inflation/

A Stellar wallet is a digital or physical tool that stores your public and private keys. These keys are needed to access and control your crypto assets. The wallet doesn't store the actual coins but lets you interact with the blockchain. It’s the gateway to sending, receiving, and safeguarding your Stellar.

Open your Stellar wallet and select “Send.” Paste or scan the recipient’s wallet address, enter the amount of XLM, and confirm the transaction. Once confirmed, the recipient sees the funds in their wallet.

Go to the “Receive” section in your Stellar wallet. Copy your wallet address or use the QR code. Share it with the sender. After the transaction is broadcast and confirmed on the blockchain, your wallet shows the updated balance of XLM.

It’s a unique string of letters and numbers linked to your wallet’s public key. Others use this address to send you XLM. Think of it like your crypto account number; it tells the network where to send the funds, but it doesn’t give access to your private key.

To securely store your Stellar, consider using a hardware wallet like Cypherock X1. It splits your private key into five cryptographic parts across secure components, ensuring your funds stay safe even if you lose one, two, or even three parts.

Yes, modern hardware wallets like Cypherock X1 support thousands of coins and tokens, including Stellar. You can manage your entire crypto portfolio across multiple wallets and blockchains seamlessly.

With Cypherock X1, your private key is split into five secure parts. As long as you have two parts of the hardware components (an X1 Card or the X1 Vault), you can recover your Stellar even if the other three parts are lost.

Look for tamper-proof smartcards, EAL6+ certification, offline verification, and decentralized key storage. Cypherock X1 offers all of these, ensuring bank-grade security for your Stellar.