Note: This is not investment advice – just an exploration of how mission-driven blockchain tech is built and used in the real world.
Back in college, I remember hearing about Bitcoin, which at the time was trading for well under a dollar. I was interested, but I figured it was probably just a fad, or at best, a clever idea that would fizzle out. And honestly, it seemed complicated. Wallets, private keys, exchanges – it felt like more trouble than it was worth for a busy college student.
Fast forward to 2019. I had stayed on the sidelines when it came to cryptocurrency, just watching from a distance. However, I was using Keybase (a secure messaging and cryptography platform) for work when they announced something called the “Spacedrop.” Users would receive free Stellar Lumens (XLM), the native asset of the Stellar network. I received a few XLM and decided that I might as well learn what it was all about. The airdrop didn’t last long – scammers, gaming the system, eventually forced an early shutdown – but by then, I’d found my way into the Stellar community and started learning about blockchain in earnest.
That’s when I started to understand something that often gets missed: blockchain and cryptocurrency aren’t the same thing. Crypto is just one use case – the one that tends to dominate social media and news headlines. But blockchain itself is a way to build transparent, decentralized systems that can serve many different purposes.
of many applications that can be built on top of it.
The more I explored, the more I appreciated that Stellar was my entry point into blockchain. It’s a network built not around hype, but around usability and inclusion – especially for people who’ve been left out of the traditional financial system.
There are louder voices in the crypto world, and flashier projects too. But Stellar has held my attention because of its quiet clarity: an open and community-driven network, shepherded by a nonprofit, focused on financial access, and built with real-world simplicity in mind.
Stellar Formation: Building Consensus Around a Brand-New Protocol
Since Stellar was launched in 2014, it has been anchored by the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit tasked with supporting the development and growth of the network in a transparent, mission-driven way.
When Stellar first launched, comparisons to Ripple were everywhere – and not without reason. Founder and CTO Jed McCaleb had previously helped create Ripple, and Stellar’s early codebase began as a fork of that project. But what often gets missed is what happened next.
By 2015, Stellar had entirely rewritten its code from the ground up. The Stellar team, including Stanford professor David Mazières, developed a new and innovative consensus mechanism: the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). Rather than a fork, this was a fundamental departure from Ripple’s model and from most other blockchain consensus systems in use at the time.
Rather than relying on energy-intensive mining like Bitcoin, Stellar uses a Federated Byzantine Agreement model, also referred to as Proof of Agreement (PoA). In this system, each participant chooses its own trusted peers – called quorum slices – and consensus emerges from the overlap of those trust relationships.
In the SCP, nodes choose their own trusted sets. When those sets overlap and reach agreement, consensus is achieved – securely, efficiently, and without mining or staking.
This approach allows Stellar to process transactions quickly, with low fees and minimal energy use, without sacrificing decentralization. Compared to other bulky and energy-intensive blockchain networks, Stellar is designed to be fast, lightweight, and resilient. In that way, the protocol reflects Stellar’s broader mission: practical access over speculative scale, and real-world utility over hype.
Stellar Architecture: A Lean, Purpose-Built Blockchain
Stellar was designed with a clear, focused purpose: to make moving money fast, affordable, and accessible. In many ways, it carries forward the original vision outlined in Bitcoin’s whitepaper – a peer-to-peer financial system designed for everyday use – while taking a more streamlined technical and organizational path than Bitcoin’s network has taken. Its protocol is intentionally minimal, but for developers who would like to leverage more advanced capabilities, Stellar also offers Soroban: a native smart contract platform designed to work alongside the core network. This unique architecture allows developers to build natively on Soroban without slowing the network down or dealing with exorbitant fees.
At the protocol level, Stellar also includes a decentralized exchange (DEX), allowing users to trade assets on-chain with real-time settlement. This makes it possible to send a payment in one currency and have it received in another – automatically converted in a single transaction. Combined with low fees (fractions of a cent) and 2–5 second finality, Stellar is especially suited for stablecoins, remittances, and mobile-first financial applications.
| System | Electricity per Transaction | 100W Lightbulb Time |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 1,575.93 kWh | 656 days |
| Ethereum | 107.75 kWh | 44 days |
| VISA | 0.00092 kWh | ~33 seconds |
| Stellar | 0.00022 kWh | ~8 seconds |
Perhaps most notably, Stellar achieves this without the environmental cost that plagues many blockchains. As you can see in the table above, Stellar uses less electricity per transaction than conventional financial networks, such as Visa. Thanks to its consensus model, it doesn’t rely on mining or staking, which means its energy use is negligible. One Bitcoin transaction could power a 100W light bulb for almost two years – compared to just 8 seconds for a Stellar transaction. In a world increasingly conscious of sustainability, Stellar offers an example of blockchain infrastructure that’s both effective and efficient.
Stellar Leadership: Steering the World of Blockchain Toward Inclusive Finance
In an industry often characterized by decentralization and disruption, Stellar stands out for its emphasis on collaboration and integration with existing financial systems. This approach is championed by Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the SDF.
Before joining Stellar, Dixon served as Chief Operating Officer at Mozilla, where she was a vocal advocate for net neutrality, encryption, and user privacy. Her transition to the blockchain space was driven by a commitment to leverage technology for greater financial inclusion.
Dixon has also been a visible and committed advocate for supporting women in blockchain and technology leadership. Whether mentoring other leaders or shaping Stellar’s culture from the inside out, her presence in the ecosystem reflects a broader commitment to equity – not just in how the tech is used, but in who gets to help shape it.
Stellar’s mission is further strengthened by a board of advisors that brings together some of the most respected voices in technology and open systems.
– Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, brings deep insight into payment infrastructure and developer-friendly financial tools.
– Sam Altman, now CEO of OpenAI and a longtime advocate for bold, transformative technologies, provides a future-focused lens on systems that scale.
– Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress and a champion of open-source publishing, brings perspective on decentralized platforms and global accessibility.
– Greg Stein, an influential figure in the Apache Software Foundation, contributes a strong grounding in collaborative software development and governance.
SDF’s board of advisors is one of many reasons Stellar stands out to me as a well-positioned, thoughtful leader in the blockchain space. These four that I’ve highlighted represent just a selection of a broader board made up of respected leaders whose expertise is both deep and diverse.
Stellar Growth: Partnerships, Growth, and Global Impact
In the years since Stellar was founded, hundreds of blockchain projects have launched with bold promises, only to fade away without delivering real-world value. Stellar has taken a different path: building quietly, collaborating broadly, and focusing on meaningful use cases that actually reach people. Here, I’ve highlighted just a few of the impressive things going on in the Stellar ecosystem.
Soroban: Smart Contracts, Thoughtfully Designed
Stellar’s smart contract platform, Soroban, was built to extend the network’s capabilities without compromising its speed or simplicity. Running alongside the core protocol, Soroban enables powerful, expressive financial tools – such as DeFi protocols, lending platforms, automated asset exchanges, and programmable payment systems – in a modular and secure way.
MoneyGram: Bridging Cash and Crypto
A first-of-its-kind integration with MoneyGram allows users in over 180 countries (at hundreds of thousands of individual locations) to convert digital assets like USDC to local currency – and vice versa – often without needing a bank account. This opens new doors for people in cash-based economies to access digital finance.
UNHCR: Delivering Aid with Dignity
Stellar partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to pilot a program that delivers aid through blockchain wallets – giving displaced people more control over their funds, and reducing friction in delivering humanitarian support where traditional infrastructure falls short.
Circle: Supporting Global Stablecoin Access
Through its work with Circle, Stellar has become one of the primary networks for USDC, a leading dollar-backed stablecoin, as well as other stablecoins such as EURC. The partnership enables fast, low-fee transactions across borders, with growing anchor support for compliant on/off ramps in local currencies.
These projects that we’ve looked at so far just scratch the surface. From community-led tools to real-world pilots in countries like Argentina, Nigeria, and Ukraine, Stellar’s growth isn’t limited to big headlines (although I am still surprised how many major developments on Stellar don’t make the headlines even though they probably should). The Stellar Community Fund helps fund open-source and small-business innovation on the network, and new projects are launching all the time – wallets, remittance tools, NFT platforms, digital identity solutions, and more. There’s far more happening than can fit in a single post, but the trajectory is clear: Stellar isn’t a zombie or dinosaur – but instead an ecosystem filled with life.
How to Get Involved
If you’ve made it this far, you might be wondering what it would look like to actually try Stellar out for yourself. Maybe you’re crypto-curious but cautious, or maybe you’re a more seasoned veteran of the blockchain space, looking for a hands-on way to understand how Stellar works. Either way, the good news is: Stellar makes it surprisingly approachable.
First, a good place to start is with the official documentation and resources provided by the Stellar Development Foundation. They do a great job explaining the basics of how the network works, from sending payments to issuing tokens, and the material is accessible whether you’re technical or not.
Next, I highly recommend trying out Stellar Quest, a gamified learning platform that walks you through real interactions with the Stellar network. This is actually how I started learning about blockchain in earnest. Each level gives you a challenge – like creating an account or making a payment – and helps you learn by doing. It’s a great way to get your hands dirty without needing to invest anything or risk making a mistake. I had a ton of fun playing through these challenges, and if you’re at all interested in learning about the technical side of things, I think you will, too!
At the same time, if you’re interested in connecting with others, there are a couple of welcoming communities you can check out. Stellar Global and the Stellar Developers Discord are both active spaces where people (including developers, community members, and SDF leadership) share ideas, tools, and questions. Whether you’re building something or just learning, these communities can be a valuable part of the journey, and a great place to make some new friends.
When you’re ready to try using Stellar directly, you’ll want to set up a wallet. Two beginner-friendly options are Lobstr (available on Apple and Android) and Albedo (for use in a web browser). Lobstr works great on mobile and offers a clean, intuitive experience for sending and receiving assets like XLM or USDC, among many others. Albedo runs in your browser and is especially useful if you want to interact with web-based apps or sign transactions securely online. With either option, you can get a feel for what it’s like to use the blockchain – even if you just start by sending a small test transaction to a friend, converting from one currency to another with minimal fees, or holding a little bit of a stablecoin such as USDC or EURC.
Finally, for those who want to go a bit deeper, there are community-led tools like Blend, which allow you to put your assets to work by loaning them out securely for yield. I’ve been involved with the Blend ecosystem and, relatedly, the YBX DAO. The system is built to be overcollateralized and has passed multiple security audits, though like anything involving finance, there are always risks to consider. What’s exciting about it is that it’s not run by a company – it’s shaped by the community that uses it.
If blockchain still feels abstract or uncertain, that’s okay. But if you’re ready to explore it at your own pace, Stellar offers a grounded and genuinely welcoming place to start.
Building Consensus for a Better Future
In the fast-moving world of digital innovation, it’s easy to get caught up in headlines – the hype cycles, the memecoins, the price swings, the promises that often feel empty. But underneath all of that, something quieter and more meaningful is unfolding. Blockchains like Stellar are tools for building consensus: not only between servers or validators, but between people, communities, and systems that have never had an easy way to work together before.
That’s what keeps drawing me back to Stellar. It’s an ecosystem that is focused on creating infrastructure that respects the real-world complexities of finance, access, and trust. It’s about designing systems that include more people, not fewer, and that aim for steady, practical progress over flashy noise.
In the quiet topology of the network, something luminous takes shape – a consensus not forced, but discovered, one trustline at a time.
Learning about Stellar, and blockchain in general, has shifted how I think about the future. It’s made me more aware of the invisible (and often highly complex) systems that shape our lives, and more hopeful about how they might be rebuilt with care. Not overnight. Not perfectly. But piece by piece, block by block – with open protocols and cooperative intent.
If you’ve been curious about this world but unsure where to begin, I hope this post has given you a glimpse of what’s possible. Because the most meaningful technologies aren’t the ones with the flashiest marketing. They’re the ones that quietly help us build better relationships, better tools, and a better world – for today and for the future.
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