Some opinions and questioning the positioning of XLM

BenTam

I’m hodling a few XLM last year and more than happy to invest more on it because of the Coinbase earn video, but I’m quite surprise when I found Coins.ph, once cooperating with Stellar, is now providing ripple and bitcoin cash instead.

Then I read the description of Stellar Lumens on stellar.org once again carefully:
“we needed to introduce just the slightest bit of friction to deter bad or frivolous actors.”

For me this does not really make sense, seems like the meaning of the existence of XLM is equal to “ the slightest bit of friction”/ “transaction fee”, instead of a currency for payment, which makes people doesn’t want to invest in it. It’s like one wants to invest in ETH, instead of GAS.

Strangely, the transaction fee of Stellar (XLM) is much more famous than it’s supporting fiat (like AnchorUSD), at least one can find XLM on Coinbase, Binance, Etoro etc., instead of USDX, which you can only find dollar index when googleing it.

For some altcoin as old as XLM, like LTC or DASH, at least on the website one may know where to use them to buy a T-shirt or a cup of coffee or so, and seems like other PoS blockchain is dominating the overseas transfer market more successfully.

I’m quite worry about the future situation of XLM, but at least there’s an active forum here, so hope it’s not that bad. Anyway I think there’s a need to change XLM into some widely tradable currency, instead of a transaction fee/ staking/ speculating token. I don’t have specific suggestion for now, but I think there will be.

FYI I’m from Hong Kong, somewhere desperately need a useful cyptocurrency.

NetworkSkullRipper

I'm going to give you what is my take on this.

From my understanding, the objective of the project is not to become an alternative type of currency. But rather for the network to facilitate the connectivity of the financial system, making it easier to generate financial integration.
Currently, it's not easy at all to do cross-border finance: payments, financing, capital flows, etc. Stellar wants to be the mechanism that makes that not just possible but easy and cheap.

If we see the project's goal as that, then the Lumens should not be viewed as a payment mechanism but rather as the gas or utility token within the network.
I have never seen Lumens as a replacement for the USD or EUR, but mostly as the way to make the network do things.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is not possible for this to happen, but it is not the objective the Stellar network setup to do.
On the other hand, that is what Bitcoin's goal is and what it set itself to do.

I think the best that could happen to stellar is that the XLM price finds a stable price in USD or any other reference currency (it could be Bitcoin the point of reference after all). That way the projects that work on Stellar are able to accurately and confidently estimate their operational costs for them and/or their customers.
This is one of the things that, personally, find discouraging in ETH, a transaction that used to cost USD 1 three months ago now costs USD 7. It is impossible to have long lasting, inclusive and integrating projects with that amount of variance.

To summarize my position, the price of XLM is not of my concern for the time being and I don't see it as currency replacing token but I think about it as a utility token for a network whose aim are financial applications.
It takes time for the network effects to become relevant enough to draw people into Stellar but I think it will eventually happen.

DrewPalmer

@NetworkSkullRipper - I agree, and that is how Marscoin (XMC) as a utility token, and XMC Development LLC as a development company is, treating Stellar (XLM) - the equivalent of Gas in the Ethereum world.

@BenTam - I do not believe Stellar (XLM), as currently positioned, is what you're looking for, and I wholeheartedly support "friction" and low-but-non-zero transaction fees, rather than it becoming a spendable currency on its own. I also object to the characterization of Stellar in any way as a "staking" or "speculating" token. While both elements exist, they are trivial in the context of XLM being used in transactions. The price of XLM may rise in third party markets as usage increases, but it is not my focus (For instance, when XLM price goes down I personally am sad because my holdings lose value, but my company is happy because our line item cost for transaction fees goes down)

BenTam

OK the price of XLM itself may not be the main problem, but the unpopular DeFi is. I'm quite sure ETH and EOS both have their own serious problem (high gas fee and crazy EOS CPU requirement), which Stellar doesn't have, but both of them offer saving interest and swap and stable coin which is attractive, while StellarX lacks (at least 2 years ago anyone can stake XLM).

I think the Defi itself can charge some fee from users and reward those who tokenized their assets just like other Defis, otherwise those Stellar tokens won't be attractive enough to normal users in this wave of Defi craze.
I think the tokens can have a higher collateralization rate just like MakerDao, like 150%, so it will be much more trustworthy than others like USDT. Well, I can't find much info about the tokens interstellar so it's really hard to trust those token and deposit my BTC or whatever in it, not to mention there aren't interest.

For now it would be great if someone build the swap, lending, improve the tokenizing system and retain the DEX. Pity I know nothing about programming so I can just invest my money.

It's ok to copy Ethereum Dapps, just as EOS, Cosmos and others do