Stellar Data

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What is Stellar?

Stellar is an open-source, decentralized blockchain designed for fast, low-cost financial transactions. Built around the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a unique proof-of-agreement (PoA) mechanism, Stellar focuses on facilitating cross-border payments, asset issuance, and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Stellar’s network prioritizes energy efficiency and speed, with transactions confirmed within 5 seconds and the network capable of processing up to 1,000 operations per ledger.

Stellar’s native token, the lumen (XLM), plays a key role in maintaining the network’s health by ensuring account activity and discouraging spam through a small transaction fee and minimum balance requirement.

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Key Concepts of Stellar

Stellar’s blockchain architecture and mechanisms are designed for high-speed financial transactions and asset transfers, underpinned by a few critical components that set it apart from other blockchain platforms.

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Ledger Structure

Stellar’s blockchain operates using ledgers, similar to blocks on other blockchains. A ledger records the state of accounts, balances, smart contracts, and other relevant data. Each ledger contains a ledger header, summarizing essential metadata such as the sequence number, transaction fees, and validator signatures.

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Proof-of-Agreement Consensus

Stellar uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a proof-of-agreement consensus that enables rapid transaction processing while ensuring decentralization. Unlike proof-of-work (PoW) or proof-of-stake (PoS) models, SCP relies on trusted nodes reaching a consensus through agreement, making Stellar energy-efficient and fast.

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Accounts and Trustlines

Stellar accounts hold lumen (XLM) and other token balances via trustlines. A trustline is an established link between a user account and a token issuer, allowing the user to hold, send, or receive tokens other than lumens. While accounts store native lumens, trustlines track the balances of other tokens, including popular assets like USDC and USDT.

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Token Issuance

One of Stellar’s most powerful features is its support for asset issuance. Developers can create tokenized assets that represent fiat currencies, commodities, or other real-world value. These assets can be traded on Stellar’s native decentralized exchange (DEX), making Stellar an ideal platform for borderless payments and asset transfers.

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Transaction Lifecycle & Fees

Each Stellar transaction is an atomic operation that can involve multiple operations, such as payments, creating accounts, or managing offers on the DEX. Fees are minimal, with the current minimum per-transaction fee being 0.00001 XLM. Stellar’s architecture ensures efficient cross-border transactions with a finality time of around 5 seconds.

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Smart Contracts

Stellar supports smart contracts through a combination of operations and contract data stored on the ledger. Smart contracts can define various on-chain actions, such as token management or enforcing custom rules for transactions. Stellar’s smart contract execution is energy-efficient, focusing on lightweight operations for scalability.

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Stellar Data on Dune

Stellar blockchain data is categorized into traditional time series tables (e.g., history_ tables for actions affecting the state of the ledger) and ledger state tables (e.g., accounts, representing the current state). This division allows users to explore historical actions and current ledger state for deeper analysis. Here are the Stellar tables available on Dune: