Stellar Price Spikes 60% as Altcoins Ride the Bitcoin Boom

Stellar (XLM) is up more than 60% today and 111% for the week, as prices continue to surge alongside Ripple (XRP) and other altcoins.

XLM is currently trading for around $0.190 per coin. That's its highest price in more than two years. Meanwhile, XRP, a closely related crypto asset, has exploded over the past few days, approaching $1 before heading back down to around $0.70.

The altcoin rush comes on the heels of a historic Bitcoin bull run. The price of Bitcoin is up 10% over the last seven days, and currently sits at over $19,000. That’s nearly an all-time high. That momentum appears to be carrying crypto assets with smaller market caps, including Stellar.

Jed McCaleb, who co-founded Ripple in 2012, spun off Stellar in 2014 as a more consumer-friendly version of a product originally designed for banks.

Trading volume across exchanges for Stellar now sits at $3.2 billion.

One possible reason for this boom in XLM prices has to do with its relationship to XRP, analyst Michaël van de Poppe told Decrypt; XRP has been benefiting from excitement surrounding an upcoming airdrop, which will grant users “spark” tokens from a new-ish company called the Flare Network. 

“[Since] these two are often correlated with each other, it's a surprise that DOGE isn't moving heavily yet,” added van de Poppe, though Dogecoin’s success or failure may rest more on Elon Musk tweets than on any correlation with XRP or XLM.