Stellar Lumens Protocol 15 Upgrade: Why it Matters

Stellar Lumens Protocol

Stellar is one of the most promising payment cryptocurrencies on the market. Forging numerous partnerships and building cutting edge tech, Stellar is expanding its worldwide operations by providing cost-effective and fast solutions that can process 1000 transactions in a second, at a fraction of a penny or 0.00001 Lumens. Recently, Stellar launched a new protocol that was well received by crypto users and was followed by a 100% increase in price for XLM within 48 hours of the launch of the new product, a first since September 2018. Stellar project developers announced the implementation of a new version of the Stellar public network protocol by validators.

About Stellar

Stellar was founded in 2014, and it is a distributed hybrid blockchain platform. Its primary focus is on integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) with the present financial infrastructure by acting as a bridge between traditional (also called centralized fiat currencies) and decentralized cryptocurrencies. It intends to provide an open financial system to people of different income levels to access low-cost financial services.

New Upgrade

  • Stellar launched an upgrade called Protocol 15, which includes features that are designed to improve user experience whilst maintaining a defense against “farm attacks” and other threats that might try to destabilize the real purpose of the network.
  • A farm attack is where an entity creates multiple accounts with the purpose of harvesting small amounts of funds sent to those accounts by service providers, which are required to activate the account.
  • Protocol 15 has two new features – Claimable Balances and Sponsored Reserves, which makes it easier to develop several user-friendly apps on Stellar. Like all important network-wide settings, the protocol version is decided by validating nodes, who vote for and agree to a new protocol version the same way they vote for and agree to transaction sets.

About Protocol 15

  • Stellar is created to connect the global financial infrastructure with Protocol 15, which has 2 new features  – Claimable Balances and Sponsored Reserves. It has taken over a year to make Protocol 15, and it addresses some major concerns developers have when they build user-facing apps and services on Stellar.
  • Protocol 15 combined with Fee Bumps (which was introduced in protocol 13) along with claimable balances and sponsored reserves allows developers to build apps that might interest a much wider audience.
  • Anchors can onboard users without sending them to third-party cryptocurrency exchanges. The apps will move everything related to crypto to the background.
  • After the update, developers can create a better and simpler user experience that eases the complexity of blockchain without losing any of its advantages like an affordable, fast, and permission less public ledger. You can check Stellar Lumens Prediction by experts to know how it changed the future price of XLM.

Claimable Balance

Protocol 15 unveils a new ledger entry called Claimable Balance that is used to split payments into two parts, such as the creation of balance and to claim of balance. With Protocol 15, the anchors can not only accept off-network user deposits but also immediately can create an equivalent on-network claimable where it can be collected by the user anytime.

Sponsored Reserves

Protocol 15 introduced new operations where it permits one account to sponsor their lumen reserves for another account without giving them control of their underlying funds. Also, it adds new extensions to ledger entries and accounting entries to record the important information about sponsorships, while fee bumps, which were introduced in protocol 13, permit other accounts transaction fees without giving control over underlying funds. Sponsored reserves make it easy to create an app or a service that handles the requirement of lumen on behalf of the users, without inviting farm attacks.

Advantages of Protocol 15

With Protocol 15, a wallet can provide in-app deposits through a Stellar anchor, which can accept user funds through the local currency, and it can instantly create a claimable balance. The wallet can cover transaction fees and lumen reserves on behalf of the user so that they can start using the app immediately. 

Why did Stellar’s price rise after the upgrade?

  • On 23rd November, developers implemented the new Protocol 15 and introduced two new features that help build user-friendly apps on the platform.
  • The team revealed that the new features would retain the network’s defense against farm attacks and other possible methods hackers might use for attacking the Stellar blockchain.
  • For over a year, Stellar has been an underperforming cryptocurrency among other major coins. The  XLM price had been at an all-time low even though other major cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin faced an upward trend. When Protocol 15 was unveiled on 21st November, its trading volume started to move upwards, and XLM has doubled its value. Since then, XLM has been in the list of top 100 coins by market capitalization. 

Bottom Line

Stellar’s Protocol 15 is an upgrade from Protocol 13. Stellar was preparing and planning for this update for quite some time. According to its blog, the upgrade comes with an improvement in the sponsored reserves and the claimable balances available on the platform. This will help users with the process of developing new apps and services will be simpler, faster, and easier on the Stellar network.

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