Stellar (XLM) Stablecoin Market Cap Soars to an All-Time High of $343.68 Million

This surge underscores Stellar's growing dominance in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem and its role as a leading platform for stablecoin issuance and cross-border payments.

Stellar, the blockchain payment network often viewed as a competitor to Ripple, has reached a significant milestone with its stablecoin market supply reaching an all-time high of $343.68 million, according to data from DeFiLlama.

This surge showcases Stellar's growing dominance in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem and its role as a leading platform for stablecoin issuance and cross-border payments.

Moreover, Stellar's focus on financial inclusion, especially in developing economies, has driven its adoption for remittances, micropayments, and DeFi applications.

This isn't a new trend, as data from November 2024 shows that stablecoin supply on Stellar has continuously risen, leading to this record-breaking milestone.

As Stellar continues to expand its presence in the blockchain ecosystem, investors are naturally asking: Will this momentum translate into a bullish run for XLM, the native cryptocurrency of the Stellar network?

Stellar's Expanding Footprint

The spike in stablecoin supply on Stellar highlights the network's growing capabilities for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and efficient stablecoin-based transactions.

Stablecoins, such as USD Coin (USDC) and EUR Coin (EURC), are natively supported on Stellar, which leverages its high throughput of up to 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) and negligible transaction fees, as low as $0.0000006 per transaction.

This makes Stellar an attractive platform for financial institutions and fintech firms seeking low-cost and high-speed payment solutions.

Furthermore, Stellar's notable partnerships have boosted its ecosystem in recent years. The network is continuing to collaborate with corporations like IBM, through the World Wire project, and Franklin Templeton, which launched a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund on Stellar in 2021.

These developments demonstrate Stellar's appeal to institutional players. Additionally, the firm's integrations with Mastercard for stablecoin infrastructure and Circle for USDC and EURC issuance have solidified its position as a leader in the stablecoin industry.

Can This Record Propel XLM Price Upwards?

With network activity on Stellar surging to new highs, it's only natural for the spotlight to shift to XLM's price performance.

While this record-breaking stablecoin supply is a bullish development for the Stellar ecosystem, its impact on XLM price remains largely uncertain.

At the time of writing, XLM is trading at $0.2623, with a 24-hour trading volume of $160.50 million and a market capitalization of $8.11 billion. It currently remains 71.95% below its all-time high of $0.9381, marked in January 2018.

Over the past month, XLM price has increased by 4.88%, but it has declined 7.56% in the past seven days, performing poorly compared to the broader cryptocurrency market, which is down just 1.10%, according to latest market data. Despite this, XLM has shown resilience over the longer term, posting a remarkable 136% increase over the past year.

While increased stablecoin activity could drive demand for XLM, Stellar faces significant challenges in its broader adoption against its competition from other payment-focused blockchains like Ripple (XRP).

Specifically, Ripple has been making inroads in securing regulatory clarity and expanding its global footprint, posing a competitive threat to Stellar's ambitions.

This makes it interesting to observe whether Stellar can capitalize on this milestone to drive broader adoption and, in turn, boost XLM price.

This will depend on sustained network growth, technical breakouts, and favorable market conditions.