Founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim, the system was envisioned as an enhancement to the existing banking tools in hopes to give more people the opportunity to access global markets and participate in the digital economy with no restrictions. Although it was initially built on Ripple protocol, Stellar eventually split from Ripple and built their own blockchain.

Stellar’s native currency Lumens (XLM) is mostly required for opening an account and paying for transaction fees. It can also be used as a medium of exchange as transactions on Stellar network are fast and have low transaction fees.