Stellar protocol reveals 176% increase in payments processed

In its 2022 report, Stellar protocol reveals an increase of 73% in total assets, along with a 176% growth in total payments processed.

The Stellar Development Foundation development team has released the findings of the protocol’s first year of use. Increasing the breadth and calibre of the XLM network, expanding collaborations, especially with MoneyGram, and launching new projects are among its accomplishments.

Stellar’s 2022 achievements recap 

Stellar celebrated 2021 after completing 1 billion operations in only two quarters. However, this year Stellar, who last year partnered with Ukraine on a CBDC project, almost reached 1 billion operations in a single quarter. This growth has been exponential, as the company demonstrated growth in assets, accounts, operations and total payments processed, as shown in the graph below: 

Although the number of relevant assets on the network somewhat decreased due to Stellar tightening its reporting criteria to exclude outdated relevant assets, the daily transaction volume of these assets has increased by 1.9 times since the year’s beginning. 

The company’s announcement earlier this year that smart contracts will be coming to Stellar was one significant milestone worth noting. Futurenet, a testnet with incentives, is presently online with Soroban, and the mainnet is scheduled to go live in the middle of 2019.

In 2022, Stellar also partnered with MoneyGram, a global provider of money transfer services, that allows users to send and receive money through a network of authorized agents and retail locations. They launched MoneyGram Access, an on/off-ramp solution for digital wallets aimed to build a bridge between fiat currency and crypto. It allows users to deposit or withdraw cash from their digital wallets via Stellar USDC without needing a bank account.

How does the Stellar consensus protocol work?

Stellar is a decentralized protocol that facilitates cross-asset transfers and payments. It is an open-source, distributed ledger platform that enables fast and reliable financial transactions between different parties.

The Stellar protocol uses a network of nodes to validate and record transactions on its Stellar ledger. This ledger records all transactions that have taken place on the Stellar network. It is maintained by the nodes in the network through a process called consensus.

The Stellar protocol uses its own native digital currency, lumens (XLM), as a means of exchange and a tool for fighting spam on the network. The protocol also supports the issuance and exchange of other digital assets, such as tokens based on fiat currencies, commodities, or other assets.