Stellar and Chain merge to become Interstellar
The Stellar network just got a new set of high power applications.
Stellar Lumens is a token issuance and international payments-focused cryptocurrency, Chain is/was a builder of cryptographic products for use on decentralised ledgers, and together they are now Interstellar.
The nitty gritty of the deal is that Stellar-backed commercial arm Lightyear acquired Chain to merge with it. Both the Lightyear and Chain brand names will be retired and replaced with Interstellar.
Interstellar will focus on helping companies build on the Stellar network. Chain CEO Adam Ludwin will be Interstellar CEO, Stellar founder Jed McCaleb will be CTO and all 30 of Chain's current employees will be staying on and doubling to an Interstellar headcount of 60, while Chain's investors are getting cashed out.
The upshot
The upshot of the deal is that Chain, along with some existing clients and services, will be moving onto the Stellar blockchain. Stellar will essentially get several new tools for businesses to take a significant step towards potential wider real-world adoption.
The deal has been underway and kept under wraps for a while, said Chain CEO Adam Ludwin to Yahoo Finance in an interview, which might be why the whole thing seems to have sprung fully formed into the world with several solutions ready to go.
In line with its goal of helping businesses make the most of the Stellar network, Interstellar has four existing solutions, most of which are either ready to go or will be soon.
StellarX
This is one of several exchanges that plan to tap into the Stellar universal order book. These exchanges might be thought of as different doorways to the same marketplace, where the exact nature of the marketplace depends on which doorway you walk through.
The StellarX doorway focuses on giving its users zero fees, fast trades and complete access to every single thing the Stellar marketplace has to offer.
Sequence
This is a blockchain-as-a-service system.
It's essentially an almost plug-and-play blockchain system that goes the extra mile with its emphasis on the creation and management of tokenised assets.
Kelp
This is a trading bot for the Stellar universal exchange, allowing users to create liquidity, set a spot price for tokens, make spreads and make markets as well as price and trade one's own stablecoins and mimic orders from other exchanges.
Starlight
This refers to the ongoing plans for Lightning on the Stellar network.
Overall, Stellar looks close to being one of the most useable networks out there. It's worth emphasising that this doesn't necessarily have much to do with the price of the Stellar Lumens XLM token though. Most of its value is probably still tied to its nature as a speculative vote of confidence in Stellar's network effects, rather than as a functional utility token or currency.
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VET, XLM, BTC and ADA.
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