Stellar: A big surprise but is it here to stay?

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Stellar, or any other Cryptoasset for that matter.

Destined to be the next Ripple… or maybe not?

The closing week of 2017 and first few days of the new year saw the market cap of Stellar (XLM) skyrocket over 400%, from just over $3.5 billion on December 24th to a peak of over $16.5 billion on January 4th. (Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/stellar/)

Source: CoinMarketCap

This surge pushed Stellar up through the ranks of Cryptoassets (in terms of market cap). Stellar which was previously not even in the top 10, now ranked as high as number 6 overall (for a short while at least).

With this surge came the media spotlight and shift into the public eye. CNBC even hailing Stellar as:

“a new hottest cryptocurrency of 2018 so far”.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/theres-a-new-hottest-coin-of-2018-so-far-stellar.html

A quick look at Google trends also show an uptick of search interest in Stellar of over 6 fold. (Period from December 5th to January 3rd):

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&q=stellar

What Stellar is all about:

Before going any further I urge potential investors to educate themselves on the Stellar network. Here are some great places to get started:

• Mandate
• Stellar Basics

And a great intro video:

My highlights and takeaways of the Stellar Network:

Fast and cheap transactions: Compared to it’s big brother, Bitcoin, transactions are executed much faster rate and at a massively smaller cost.

Non-profit and decentralized: Unlike Ripple, Stellar’s control is much less centralized.

Great Code quality: Even a quick glance at Stellar’s documentation and API’s and it becomes evident Stellar is head and shoulders above many other popular cryptoassests. (As a side note: I believe assessment of code quality is hugely underutilized in today pricing of cryptoassets and one of the reasons I am bearish on projects such as Iota with poor documentation.)

High profile partners such as IBM and Deloitte.

What Now? Should I invest?

After seeing Stellar’s recent price surge and what the network has going for it, the question becomes: does Stellar deserve this newly inflated valuation or is it merely the result of overly rose tinted speculation.

As a new investor, seeing this sudden uptick in Stellar’s price may convince you that the ship has sailed and it is too late to get in on the action. Likewise for investor’s who held Stellar before and during the price surge, it is easy to think this is the peak and it’s time to cash out.

It is not abnormal to think this way, but imagine for a second that you had bought Apple stock at $2 and saw it jump to $6. You might have felt the same way and decided to cash out. Lo and behold, Apple stock is trading at over $175 today.

This is a long term game and for Stellar this is just the beginning.

Stellar: A big surprise but is it here to stay? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.