The innovative open-source protocol system for value-exchange was found, developed, and launched by Jeb McCaleb, an American program developer, and entrepreneur, and his partner, Joyce Kim, a former lawyer. They managed to welcome aboard the Stellar Development Foundation the founder of Stripe - Patrick Collison. The Stellar Network received $3 million in seed funding from Stripe after the official announcement. As a return for the investment, Stripe received 2 percent of the initial Stellar coin resources.
Initially known as the "Secret Bitcoin Project", the network was still under development and in an alpha testing period. Later, Stellar was released as a decentralized payment system and protocol with its native currency - the Lumens (XLM).
The network prides itself on providing fast and cheap B2B and B2C service that allows international multi-currency payments with a single integration in seconds, just like email. Furthermore, the regulatory compliant network provides cryptographically secure transactions.
The network automatically converts currencies at the lowest possible rate. The transaction fee is minimal - 0.00001 lumen. The $0.01 fee handles approximately 600 000 transactions (micropayments).
The initial disposition of Stellar coins was 100 billion at the official launch of Stellar. A quarter of those was given to other non-profit organizations working towards financial inclusion.
The first huge success for Stellar came in August 2014 when Mercado Bitcoin, the first Brazilian bitcoin exchange, implemented the protocol behind the Stellar Network. On its platform, Stellar had approximately 3 million registered user accounts by the end of 2015. Back then its market cap was approximately $15 million.
The significant investment interest was followed by many fluctuations in the coin’s market performance - a tough beginning in 2015 kept the coin’s low prices until the early months of 2017. In May the coin's price reached its price record and a market cap in the range of $600 million. Later in the summer it nearly touched its lowest point again until January 2018, when its price recovered and reached a $15 million market cap.
The success didn't last for long, as two months later the coin’s price dropped down again, recovering to higher valuer in May. Since then it has been bouncing around the market without any stable state. In June 2018 XML marked another price drop. The predictions show Stellar bouncing from just above the $0.2 levels which are attracting sales, suggesting a positive outcome for the network.
Despite the lack of market stability, the network has managed to establish an extensive international partnership network - over 40 international organizations and businesses in the financial services market. Stellar’s protocols have been integrated into the operations of companies like Deloitte, IBM, EuroExcahnge, Stripe, and many others around the world.