If You'd Bought $1,000 Worth of Stellar (XLM) 5 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Stellar is designed for money transfers, but it has also been a lucrative investment.

Launched in 2014, Stellar (XLM) is an ambitious project designed to make it fast and cheap to transfer any kind of currency. Even though its price isn't anywhere close to its previous highs, it has still paid off for anyone who got in early.

If you had invested $1,000 five years ago when the price was just $0.001966, you would have gotten about 509,000 XLM. At today's price of nearly $0.19, that investment would be worth $94,403.87.

Stellar was clearly a great investment five years ago. But we don't have a time machine, so is it still worth buying today? To see if it could increase in value, let's go over what it does and its current uses.

How Stellar works

Stellar is a payment network that's built for speed and efficiency at low costs. Transactions typically take about four to five seconds and cost just 0.00001 XLM. That's less than one-thousandth of a cent at today's prices.

What makes Stellar special is that it lets you send a digital version of any form of money. You could use it to send U.S. dollars, Japanese yen, Colombian pesos, Bitcoin (BTC), or whatever other type of currency you want. The goal behind Stellar is to provide a single network for all the world's financial systems.

Because Stellar is intended as a universal payment system, the team behind it didn't want to show preference to any national currencies. The solution was the lumen, which is the native token on Stellar and what's used to pay transaction fees on the network.

Individuals aren't the only ones who can use Stellar. It also has business applications because of the efficiency it offers. Companies large and small can use it to develop global payment solutions, and some big players already have. For example, IBM partnered with Stellar in 2018 to launch its IBM World Wire, a blockchain-based global payments network.

Stellar's growth in 2021

One of the reasons to like Stellar as an investment is that it grew significantly last year. Here were a few of the most notable year-over-year examples from the Stellar Development Foundation's fourth quarter 2021 report:

• Total accounts increased by 35.57% (4.8 million to 6.5 million).
• The number of payments increased by 378.19% (15.2 million to 72.6 million).
• Average daily volume on Stellar's decentralized exchange increased by 962.94% (11.9 million XLM to 126.2 million).

Another big step forward for Stellar in 2021 was forming a partnership with MoneyGram, one of the largest money transfer companies in the world. The partnership involves integrating the Stellar blockchain into Moneygram's network. It will allow consumers to easily convert USD Coin (USDC), one of the biggest stablecoins, to cash and vice versa.

In terms of value, Stellar was up and down last year, like most of the crypto market. It had returned over 500% on the year in May, but that was followed by a steep drop. Overall, the price of Stellar increased by 108% in 2021.

Is Stellar a good investment?

Stellar certainly has potential as a cryptocurrency investment. It's in use, it's growing, and it has secured some impressive partnerships, including with IBM and Moneygram. It's also one of the older cryptocurrencies, so it has shown staying power so far. It's available for purchase on many of the best cryptocurrency apps, making it easy to invest in.

Crypto as a whole has been in a freefall this year, and Stellar has dropped about 30% in value. Although crypto bear markets like these make investors nervous, they can be a good time to buy. If you believe in the value of Stellar, now may be an opportunity to get it at a discount.

Keep in mind that Stellar and other cryptocurrencies are highly volatile. It's important to be aware of the risks, which include the possibility of losing your entire investment. If you're comfortable investing in the crypto market, Stellar is worth considering for your portfolio.