Stellar is one of the most scaling-efficient blockchains in the crypto space.
In this article, we’ll take an overview of Stellar Lumens, its core areas of business, and - most importantly for prospective investors - the pros and cons of whether you should buy stellar.
Stellar (XLM) performed extremely well in 2021 and returned 110% by the end of the year. Like most altcoins, Stellar followed in the direction of parent crypto Bitcoin (BTC) and made gains for investors in 2021.
Stellar has made great partnerships, integrations and gained institutional interest in the last year. Ethereum (ETH) currently leads the way in terms of decentralized finance (DeFi) and has Tron (TRX), Cardano (ADA), EOS.io (EOS), Neo (NEO), Tezos (XTZ) and Flow (FLOW) as its primary competitors in building decentralized protocols and applications (DApps). This has led many analysts to question whether Stellar can compete as the primary blockchain of choice for developers.
It is a known fact that Ripple (XRP) has a strong case with the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) which had a detrimental effect on the overall valuation of XRP. Fortunately, Ripple seems to be making strides with every court hearing but the future still seems unclear.
Will Stellar take advantage of Ripple’s SEC case and foster new partnerships for on-demand cross-border payment solutions?
Stellar Lumens often records daily volumes in the region of billions of dollars.
Will Stellar go up with new partnerships and acquisitions? Will Stellar double in price due to its first-mover advantage of building central bank digital currencies?
Contents:
- Stellar at a Glance
- Pros of Buying Stellar
- Cons of Buying Stellar Lumens
- How to Invest in Stellar?
- Stellar (XLM) Price Predictions: What Are Analysts and Experts Advising?
- The Bottom Line: Should You Buy Stellar Lumens?
- FAQs
Stellar At A Glance
It may come as a surprise to many people that ‘Stellar’ and ‘Lumen’ mean two different things.
What is Stellar Lumens?
"Stellar Lumens" refers to cryptocurrency as well as blockchain technology. Lumen is the cryptocurrency (native token) that is represented by the ticker symbol (XLM). Stellar, on the other hand, is the blockchain network that serves as an open-source distributed payment infrastructure to facilitate transactions between financial institutions (such as traditional banks, payment systems and individuals).
There are several readers who have reservations such as what are Stellar Lumens (XLM) used for? XLM is the cryptocurrency that powers Stellar’s Network.
Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim founded Stellar Lumens in 2014. Aside from Stellar, Jed is also the founder of Bitcoin exchange (Mt. Gox) and Ripple Labs (blockchain-based payment system) which develops Ripple (XRP).
Stellar was founded on seed money generated through funding and donations by BlackRock, Google, Fastforward and payment company STRIPE.
Why Was Stellar Formed?
The primary aim of creating Stellar was to address scalability issues associated with the use of blockchain technology and connect financial institutions via blockchain. This will result in relatively lower transaction fees and faster processing speeds, especially for developing countries.
A non-profit organization called the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) was formed and it supports the cryptocurrency and development of the Stellar Network. The Foundation is located in Delaware, USA.
How Many Stellar Lumens (XLM) Are In Supply?
There are 25.58B XLM in circulation from a total supply of 50,001,787,570 XLM.
Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Stellar’s Partnerships and Price Performance in 2014
Prior to Stellar trading on numerous cryptocurrency exchanges globally, on 6th August 2014, the CEO of Mercado Bitcoin (one of the largest digital currency operations in Latin America) and the first Bitcoin Exchange in Brazil announced that by the end of the month, his exchange will offer a new digital currency called Stellar.
Stellar recorded a paltry $0.06 in trade volume to support its $0.0021 trading price. Performing mildly well, Stellar increased in trade volume to as much as $4,000 and ended 2014 with a price of $0.0054. In the process, XLM returned 157.143% for investors.
Stellar Partnerships and Price Performance in 2015
Stellar started 2015 with new milestones. It gained a new fanbase in East and Southeast Asia. This fanbase applauded Stellar for being more socially responsible and different from Bitcoin in regards to its usage and accessibility.
More users threw themselves at Stellar’s feature of “straightforward transactions” which could be completed in seconds and low transaction fees.
Stellar decided to partner with Praekelt Foundation and its technological platform (VUMI) in February 2015 to bring technological payment solutions to young girls in Africa.
According to Gigaom, Joyce Kim, the executive director of the Stellar Foundation, theorized that “By adding Stellar as a payments platform, Vumi is getting a way to process payments for the first time. It’s an attractive prospect — thinking down the road, a government could send pregnant women money for a bus fare to get to a clinic”.
CEO of the foundation, Gustav Praekelt also added that “Because both Stellar and Vumi are open source, it will be possible for other organizations to include and extend the Stellar Savings application to enable them to build unique financial inclusion products suited to the developing world”.
On 28th February 2015, Stellar announced a new partnership with Oradian (Banking Software Company). This partnership saw Oradian employ Stellar’s Network in its core banking software for microfinance institutions.
The Stellar Development Foundation released an upgraded protocol called Stellar Consensus Protocol. The main purpose of this was to allow every person running the software to identify a few other trusted participants to correctly apply the cryptographic rules used to validate transactions. In the process, users rely less on mining to validate transactions.
Despite an upgrade, a new partnership and increased market capitalization, XLM started 2015 at a trading price of $0.0055 and finished the 1st half of the year with a price of $0.0034. Stellar Lumens further plummeted in price and dropped to a new low of $0.0017 on the last day of 2015. XLM ended up shedding 69.0909% of its opening day price.
Stellar Partnerships and Price Performance in 2016
2016 was a year of partnerships and integrations for Stellar. Multinational professional services network, Deloitte, announced on the 3rd May 2016 that it is partnering with Stellar to build a cross-border payments application. Deloitte launched a mobile application “Which can make cross-border payments “as easy as Venmo” Deloitte partner, Eric Piscini said. The company also added that “The solution reduces the cost of transfers by up to 40% and completes the transaction in about five seconds”.
Other financial institutions which partnered with Stellar in 2016 include but not limited to the ICICI Bank of India, Tempo Money Transfer (a French remittance company) and a mobile payment firm in Africa called Flutterwave.
The year of partnerships worked well for the performance of XLM. The crypto began 1st January 2016 with a price of $0.0018 and slightly increased to $0.0021 to close out the 1st half of the year. By the 31st of December 2016, it exchanged hands for $0.0024. With this, XLM returned 33.3333% for investors which was highly essential as a result of the bullish sentiments which engulfed the whole crypto finance space in 2017.
Stellar Partnerships and Price Performance in 2017
2017 was similar to 2016 and saw Stellar continue to form successful partnerships. IBM and KlickEx partnered with Stellar to use its Network to facilitate cross-border transactions primarily in the South Pacific region. Stellar launched a commercial arm called Light Year (Lightyear.io).
LightYear.io serves the purpose of creating a universal payments network which is built around the open financial protocol of Stellar. Lightyear.io acts as a bridge between traditional financial institutions as well as various other payment networks which include cryptocurrencies.
In December, Nigerian-based non-cash remittance platform (SureRemit) partnered with Stellar. SureRemit used Stellar’s blockchain to launch a crypto token which is aimed at Africans living abroad to aid them in sending money to their relatives back home in a safe, secure and fast manner.
Although China eventually banned the use of all forms of cryptocurrency, the crypto boom in 2017 was too strong and resisted attempts by several financial regulatory bodies to discredit its importance in the mainstream world. The partnerships and creation of a commercial arm brought gains to XLM.
XLM followed Bitcoin (BTC) and soared throughout the year. After opening at $0.0025 on 1st January 2017, the digital asset ended the 1st quarter of the year at a new high of $0.0239. XLM closed the year with a price of $0.4840. The resistance demonstrated by the decentralized finance market resulted in a 19,260% increase in XLM’s price.
Stellar Price Performance in 2018
Stellar’s commercial arm Lightyear.io acquired Chain Incorporation and renamed it Interstellar. This broadened Stellar’s adoption and usage as some of Chain’s clients include Visa Inc., NASDAQ Inc. and Citigroup Inc. for whom it had created private blockchains. With this acquisition, Stellar used its technology to help Chain scale faster and provide on-demand solutions to their merged customers.
After Bitcoin (BTC) began gaining traction in the mainstream, Japan banned cryptocurrencies that allowed anonymous transactions. Considering the primary aim of cryptocurrency is to privatize transactions, all cryptocurrencies were affected.
With BTC leading the way, XLM followed and plummeted badly. 2018 has been labeled as one of the worst years in the performance history of cryptocurrencies. XLM began the year with a trading price of $0.5560 and decreased to $0.1993 by June. The bearish season was not over. In the months leading up to the end of the year, XLM plummeted to $0.1157 on the last day of 2018. Stellar shed 79.1906% of its price.
Stellar Price Performance in 2019
With XLM trading for a relatively lower price than Bitcoin and other altcoins, several traders and investors failed to buy the dips and XLM faced another bearish season. This time, BTC returned gains and XLM dropped further in valuation.
Stellar Lumens opened 1st January 2019 at $0.1195 and ended 31st December 2019 at a price of $0.0452. In the process, XLM shed a further 62.1757% of its price.
Stellar Price Performance in 2020
The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 affected the financial markets and this time all assets were affected. This led to a huge sell-off which led several investors who failed to keep up with financial news in the red.
After hitting new high lows, relatively cheaper prices sparked a new interest in cryptocurrencies. This saw digital assets soar towards the end of the year. XLM opened at $0.0436 and was worth $0.1324 by the end of 2020 (203.67% increase in price).
Stellar Price Performance in 2021
Stellar returned more than 125% by the end of 2021 and 3,774% from the time of its launch up to the time of writing this report.
With such a great performance, will XLM continue its bullishness or will it correct back to its old trading prices? With the current bearish market sentiment, does XLM stand a chance of surviving amid its decentralized nature?
Read Also: How To Make (or Lose) Money With Stellar Lumens (XLM)
Pros Of Buying Stellar
So, what makes Stellar different? What are Stellar’s primary drivers and special features that cannot be found on other blockchains?
Let us take a look into the pros of buying Stellar.
✅ Stellar Has Ventured Into Creating Central Bank Digital Currencies
Stellar forged new partnerships in 2021 and one of those partnerships which gained traction in the online financial news media is building a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for Ukraine.
It must duly be noted that there is no universally agreed definition for CBDC. In simple terms, CBDCs are a new type of digital currency which governments around the global world are experimenting with, to directly compete with cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. Central Bank Digital Currencies have the potential to increase the efficiency of payments and, in the process, lower costs as they aim to employ new technology to process payments.
The Stellar Development Foundation and Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine announced on Monday, 4th January 2021 that they are in a partnership which will see Stellar use its software solutions to help the country build a digital currency.
Minister Olesksandr Bornyakov said, “The Ministry of Digital Transformation is working on creating the legal environment for the development of virtual assets in Ukraine. We believe our cooperation with the Stellar Development Foundation will contribute to [the] development of the virtual asset industry and its integration into the global financial ecosystem”.
There is a huge chance that the government of Ukraine may pay Stellar in XLM which would increase user activity of the crypto.
China Has Taken the Lead in Central Bank Digital Currency
China leapfrogged most of the developed world and established a digital Yuan. One of the benefits digital Yuan provides its citizens is accessibility to the financial system for the underbanked and unbanked. Additionally, it gives the country’s government the right statistics about the spending habits of its citizens.
Suppose Ukraine’s national digital currency flourishes under Stellar, several developed countries may partner with Stellar for their own CBDC. This could increase activity on the Stellar Network. It could also bring liquidity to XLM since Stellar may opt to receive funds in crypto.
✅ Revolutionary Technology Brings More Adoptions and Partnerships
Stellar’s blockchain technology is relatively different from other blockchains. This is because numerous cryptos used Bitcoin (BTC) as a template on which they attempted to create their systems.
Evidently, Litecoin (LTC) became a fork of BTC and Dash (DASH) became a fork of Litecoin. Ethereum (ETH), first-mover of smart contracts and king of decentralized finance (DeFi) relied extensively on the features of BTC and as result employed a proof-of-work algorithm in its 1st blockchain Ethereum 1.0.
Stellar on the other hand does not use mining to validate transactions. It relies on the Stellar Consensus Protocol, an upgrade to the Stellar Network in 2015 on a new algorithm written by Stanford professor David Mazières.
Stellar scales relatively faster than other blockchains. So, how fast is Stellar? Evidently, its Network is capable of processing 1,000 up to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS). This means that Stellar’s Network is 100 to 500 times better than the mother of all blockchains Bitcoin and 50 to 250 times faster than the king of DeFi, Ethereum (ETH).
Because of its fast scaling times, Stellar comes with an average fee of $0.000106 as per data retrieved from CoinDesk.
With this, the Stellar Network is settling cross-border payments in a matter of seconds. Not long ago, such transactions were settled in days to a week.
Partnerships and Adoptions of Stellar
As per its technology, Deloitte (one of the top four accounting firms in the world), IBM, ICICI Bank and Tempo Money Transfer have employed Stellar’s products to fasten transactions.
Real-world usage and adoption by well-established companies brings leverage to Stellar. With more partnerships coming in the future, traders and investors can trust Stellar as a digital asset with a huge potential in the future which would command a higher price.
✅ Stellar Officially Launched a Stablecoin
In February 2021, Stellar announced that the world’s leading digital dollar stablecoin USDC is now on Stellar. It was made available immediately on Stellar’s decentralized exchange (DEX). With this, exchanges, wallets and developers can now leverage speed, security and low cost of the Stellar network to operate a truly global digital dollar. Stellar later claimed that there are broad-ranging applications for this stablecoin on the network since the digital dollar can play as a bridge currency.
According to PR Newswire, “The integration brings immediate value to the Stellar ecosystem, connecting and creating new business opportunities for existing Stellar-based businesses, USDCs network of existing partners, and future FinTechs looking to optimize payments, especially cross-border transactions”.
Aside from this, Stellar announced another stablecoin partnership in 2020. “We’re thrilled to announce that @Bitbond and Bankhaus von der Heydt are now issuing Euro Stablecoin (EURB), the first stablecoin issued directly by a banking institution on Stellar”.
Bitbond is one of Germany’s leading tokenization and digital asset custody technology providers. Bankhaus von der Heydt is one of the oldest banks in the European Union operating since 1754.
The primary purpose of this partnership is to help their customers as well as third party developers of financial applications to leverage EURB and in the process help settle on-chain digital asset transfers. Due to this successful partnership, any business organization or individual in the Eurozone can connect to Stellar with the euro.
Such partnerships are in line with one of the pillars in the 2022 roadmap of Stellar which is building blocks to interoperability and inclusion, increasing scalability and network innovation and activating more network participation. This brings up a new wave of financial innovation in the decentralized finance space and calls more businesses to patronize Stellar as the blockchain of choice for their business solutions. Adoption and usage is positively reflected in the price of Stellar.
✅ Stellar Keeps Upgrading Its Network
In March 2021, George Kudrayvtsev announced via the digital address of Stellar that Horizon 2.0 has been released to power the Network. Horizon 2.0 brings architectural and performance benefits to the network which sees more transactions processed.
✅ There Has Been a Substantial Increase in Volume On Its Network
Stellar released its Q2 report of 2022. The report pointed out that the average daily volume of Stellar’s decentralized exchange (DEX) surpassed 38 million XLM per day, an increase of 415% from Q2 2021.
Additionally, Stellar saw a rise of 88% in total payments processed on the network which increased from 437 million to 823 million. Considering Lumens (XLM) is the native token of the network, these accounts for the high trade volumes Stellar as a whole has experienced on all the exchanges combined. To put it in a simple way, it has played an invaluable role in the current valuation of Stellar.
Check Out: Will Stellar Make Me Rich in 10 Years?
Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Cons Of Buying Stellar Lumens
Stellar seems to have achieved most of its roadmaps leading up to its current valuation. But this does not mean it’s a perfect crypto asset. It has pitfalls like other cryptocurrencies.
Let us have an extensive look at some of the cons of buying Stellar.
❌ Heavy Regulation May Set In
In April 2021, Stellar experienced a crash which was led by Bitcoin. This drop in prices coincided with reports that the Treasury of the United States plans on tackling financial institutions for money laundering carried out through digital assets.
Aside that, the Central Bank of Turkey announced a ban of the use of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets as an option for payments. The central bank of Turkey has pointed out that cryptocurrencies lack regulation by a strong central authority. As a result, “[This] may cause non-recoverable losses for the parties to the transactions”.
As a result of the announcement, Stellar (XLM) has shed more than 10% of its price, while Bitcoin recorded its biggest one-day loss for the first time in two months. BTC lost 12% of its price. The second most popular digital asset Ethereum (ETH) also fell as much as 17%. Other altcoins such as Litecoin were not spared as it fell 13%. With Stellar being heavily decentralized, strong regulation from a central authority could see the crypto trading asset bottom out.
As an investor, you cannot take your eyes off the price of Stellar (XLM) if you hold a position. Trading and investing in cryptocurrencies is risky. We would advise you to invest an amount of money you can write off as bad debt (money you can afford to lose).
❌ Focused On Growing the Stellar Network and Not Adoption of XLM
Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, do not have any other strong use cases aside from an option of payment. It also thrives on its status as first-mover and, currently, a store of value.
Litecoin, Dash and Dogecoin also function as transactional cryptocurrencies as they do not provide smart contracts like Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX), Neo (NEO), EOS.io (EOS) and Cardano (ADA).
Stellar is focused on developing its blockchain so that liquidity through XLM would be obtained in terms of transactions processed on the network. This means that if something should go wrong on the network, there are no other functions that could propel XLM’s price further.
For the time being, XLM will likely not be found on major retail outlets as an option of payment since it’s powering the Stellar Network. If that fails at a point in time, then the price of XLM may bottom out and see investors lose a huge chunk of their money.
With the cons pointed does Stellar Lumens have a future? Stellar does have a future. Though trading and investing in cryptocurrencies comes with a huge risk. Stellar’s partnerships promise huge potential in the future. With that said, no single expert or analyst can boldly forecast what would happen in the next one to five years. For the time being, only invest what you are willing to lose. You can also diversify your portfolio with other assets such as stocks, metals and commodities to balance losses incurred along the way.
Read Also: 9 Reasons Why You Should Invest in Stellar (XLM) Today
How To Invest In Stellar?
Now that you are informed on the pros and cons of Stellar, you are in a better position to decide if you should invest in Stellar.
eToro is our brokerage of choice. As a result of the headlines on numerous online financial outlets with regards to the ban of cryptocurrencies, finding a credible platform like eToro would provide you with the safety and security you need to hold your coins.
Follow the below steps to purchase XLM.
The FIRST STEP is to SIGN UP. Kindly provide authentic information such as your full name, date of birth, email address and phone number.
The SECOND STEP is to VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT. Any government-issued identification card can be used to authenticate the information you provided in the previous step.
The THIRD STEP is to DEPOSIT FUNDS. Using your bank card or any of the payment methods, you can deposit fiat currency in the form of GBP, USD or EUR.
The LAST STEP is to NAVIGATE to XLM. You can buy XLM here and it would be processed and added to your account.
Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Stellar (XLM) Price Predictions: What Are Analysts And Experts Advising?
Several analysts have provided XLM price forecasts supported by fundamental and technical analysis. This will bring closure to whether Stellar Lumens is worth buying. Additionally, the XLM price predictions would find potential answers to questions such as will Stellar Lumens recover after the price plunge caused by the December market drop?
Digital Coin forecasts XLM to trade at $0.14 in 2022, $0.21 in 2023, $0.33 in 2025 and $0.66 by the end of 2030.
Previsioni Bitcoin predicts that XLM could end the year with a trading price of $0.14 and reach $0.20 in August 2023.
According to Trading Beasts, XLM could be trading at a minimum of $0.13 and a maximum of $0.19 by the end of 2022.
Trading Beasts’s experts further foresee an average trading price of $0.18 by the end of 2023. Then a price reversal back to an average of $0.23 by the end of 2024.
As per analysts at Priceprediction, XLM will have a minimum price of $0.13 and a maximum price of $0.14 in 2022. In 2023 they forecast an average price of $0.19 and $0.27 in 2024.
Stellar Lumens Price Prediction 2025
The Economy Forecast Agency predicts Stellar XLM to close at $0.07 by the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Digital Coin predicts XLM to trade at $0.33 per coin by the end of 2025.
Priceprediction expects XLM to reach $0.44 in 2025, while according to Trading Beasts XLM can hit a high of $0.29 in 2025.
What will Stellar be worth in 2030?
There aren’t many price forecasts for XLM in 2030. Coin Price Forecast predicts Stellar to end 2030 with a price of $0.32.
Don't Miss: Stellar Price Prediction Forecast
The Bottom Line - Should You Buy Stellar Lumens?
Analysts predictions show that Stellar Lumens is worth buying. Despite the crypto boom of 2021, no single crypto asset can claim perfection. However, Rayne Harris of Ripple Coin News sees long term gains for Stellar with a price of $1 to $1.40 forecasted for the digital asset in 2023.
The analyst has further opined that altcoins will continue to follow in the footsteps of Bitcoin in the years to come. This could see XLM trade for $5 by the close of 2025.
In the last four years, Stellar has fostered great partnerships with Western Union, IBM and Deloitte. These are well-established companies with millions of clients that are benefiting from Stellar’s technological solution which scales faster and meets their business demands.
In line with meeting its roadmap through the Stellar Enterprise Fund, the Stellar Development Foundation has invested in Wyre, Cowrie Integrated Systems and DSTOQ. This will help broaden the ecosystem of Stellar and as well bring more innovative technological solutions to individuals and business organizations.
Stellar has been certified as a buy by different experts but it’s important that you do your own research (fundamental and technical) so that you can make an investment decision.
For the time being, Stellar (XLM) is an asset you can consider adding to your portfolio of investments because of the future promise it shows.
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Crypto asset investing is highly volatile and unregulated in some EU countries. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
FAQs
Can you mine Stellar Lumens?
No, Stellar Lumens cannot be mined. Stellar employs its Stellar Consensus Protocol and not a proof-of-work (POW) or proof-of-stake (POS) algorithm. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum among a range of other cryptocurrencies employ mining.
This is the main reason why Stellar scales relatively faster than most of these cryptocurrencies blockchains. The disadvantage in not having a mining process is that there are no rewards which are otherwise associated with other blockchains for miners.
Will Stellar Lumens Go Up?
XLM could go up, as per the predictions of several experts. Stellar has forged partnerships with Ukraine to build a CBDC which can give it a competitive advantage in terms of building digital currencies for developed countries. Additionally, XLM has seen more liquidity and activity based on volumes recorded on Stellar’s decentralized exchange (DEX) and overall trade volumes on cryptocurrency exchanges. This could drive XLM to new price highs in the future.
Why is Stellar Lumens so cheap?
Stellar is cheap because of its supply. Stellar has a little over 50 billion XLM tokens on the market and 25.5 billion have been purchased. This means half of the coins have not been bought which does not bode well for its price. Scarcity plays an integral role in the valuation of assets.
Gold has been priced relatively higher over the years because its demand is far greater than the supply. A crypto asset like Bitcoin (BTC) still has a reserve risk of 0.008.
This means that HODLers (long term holders of assets) have confidence in the BTC as a store of value. They are holding BTC with the hope that the remaining 9% of BTC will be mined so that supply and demand will set in.
Stellar is relatively cheaper than most altcoins and will soar in price when more institutional investors join the queue. It could also increase in price if Stellar Lumens Reddit Community joins forces to pump up the price.
Is Stellar a good crypto?
Stellar is a good crypto and powers the Stellar Network. If Stellar continues to forge new partnerships and XLM grows in scarcity, the real value of Stellar could be seen in the near future.
Is Stellar better than Ripple?
Stellar and Ripple were both co-founded by Jed McCaleb and they provide similar services in the cross-border payment solutions space. Currently, the only edge Stellar (XLM) has over Ripple (XRP) is its partnership with Ukraine to provide central bank digital currency. It also has not had issues with the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC). With that said, XRP is trading above XLM having crossed $1 in April 2021. Overall, they are both blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies that use software solutions to help their clients.