Hristina Vasileva
Stellar (XLM) beccame one of the latest crypto assets to begin a rally. Its recent run breaks it out of years of sideways drifting. XLM is back above $0.24, expecting a renewed wave of adoption.
Stellar (XLM) rallied after years of low-level activity. The project was one of the stars from previous bull cycles, especially from a period when it consistently competed with Ripple in building an institutional network.
XLM finally took off just days after Franklin Templeton announced a shift to Stellar’s network, reaching its highest level since 2022. XLM is back in the top 20 of coins and tokens, after growing by more than 128% in a week to reach $0.24. The asset has not seen these levels since August 2022, before it started on its prolonged slide.
Trading volumes also returned to levels not seen since the 2024 rally, increasing to $1.94B in 24 hours. XLM has shown its growth potential during bull markets, setting expectations for breaking above $0.30 in the short term.
Open interest for XLM also rallied to a three-year high, expanding above $102M. However, XLM is at risk due to a 65% predominance of long positions, which may be attacked by selling. Additionally, XLM may have holders from previous bull markets, trying to cash out from this rally.
Stellar’s laid out plans to build an institutional network capable of carrying business-grade transactions. For years, Stellar mostly ran tests and partnerships but lagged behind crypto insider trends. The Stellar network aimed to build an open-source version of Ripple’s protocol, tapping banking transfers and institutional finance.
Franklin Templeton boosts Stellar’s locked value
Franklin Templeton issues its RWA token, BENJI, to a select group of accredited investors. Previously, the fund launched on Aptos, before branching into Stellar.
The Franklin Templeton fund is one of the leading RWA creators, testing transactions on a total of 12 chains. The fund also has the role of a node operator and validator for some of the networks. The end goal of the fund is to tokenize assets from its $1.6 trillion asset base using the most reliable and innovative chains. Stellar benefits from this as it is one of the chains offering the lowest transaction costs.
The addition of Stellar happened after Franklin Templeton also launched its BENJI token on Ethereum. BENJI is still not widely distributed, but it serves as a tokenization test to popularize the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX).
Each share of the FOBXX fund is represented by one BENJI token. Each share in the fund is represented by one BENJI token. The asset may be used to spread the tokenized fund to multiple chains, testing which one will have the widest adoption.
BENJI tokens are available to browse and invest through Franklin Templeton’s dedicated app, which offers multi-chain access to tokenized securities. For now, BENJI works as an experimental asset for traditional finance, rather than an investment for crypto insiders.
Franklin Templeton has also partnered with Chainlink to test blockchain transactions as a way to speed up settlements and avoid complex business processes that cause a significant transaction load.
XLM’s DeFi sector grows
Stellar shows that despite its sideways drift, it is not a “dead chain.” The project missed out on the hype around games and NFTs, but it has shown it is capable of carrying DeFi tokens.
Stellar already increased its reported value locked to $31.66M, even without the influence of Franklin Templeton. The fund could bring $386.19M to the chain, though it is not directly connected to general permissionless DeFi.
Franklin Templeton’s value is mostly based on US government securities, with the potential to tokenize them on any chain. Since Franklin Templeton’s clients are not crypto natives, chain adoption may be easier based on an agreement with the fund.
Outside RWA tokens, Stellar supports LumenSwap, its biggest DEX, with nearly $15M in locked value. The chain also carries smaller DeFi protocols, catching up with other networks.
Just before the price spike, Stellar also saw an anomaly in daily active addresses. Activity on Stellar spiked to more than 153K daily active addresses during the November 6-7 market rally, followed by the near-vertical price expansion. XLM has shown that it is not a forgotten asset. It was just waiting for the right moment to relaunch its trading activity and liquidity.
