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- As Stellar hovers around $0.36, traders are keeping a close eye on several fundamental and technical catalysts that could influence its trajectory.
- The Protocol 23 upgrade has generated excitement as it promises scalability improvements and smarter contract interoperability.
Stellar’s ecosystem is gaining traction as more tokenized assets flow in, driving its total value locked (TVL) to fresh highs and strengthening the network’s long-term fundamentals.
According to technical data, XLM is trading around $0.36, with support near $0.34 and resistance in the $0.37–$0.39 range.
The RSI sits near oversold levels, 39, hinting at a possible rebound, while the MACD remains bearish but subdued, leaving room for a reversal if sentiment shifts. With daily trading volume at $191 million, a market cap of $5.5 billion, and XLM ranked 16th overall, analysts like Ali Martinez suggest this could be “a good zone to start buying Stellar before a breakout to $1.”
Let’s look at several factors that may push XLM to these heights.
The ETF buzz
Galaxy Digital recently spotlighted Stellar as one of just ten tokens that could qualify for the SEC’s proposed fast-track ETF approval program. That puts XLM in rare company and gives it a potential edge if the plan moves forward.
According to Galaxy, a token can make the cut in three ways: by trading on an exchange that’s part of the Intermarket Surveillance Group, and so far, only Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) meet this. Second, by having a futures contract that’s been listed on a regulated market for at least six months, or by already being part of an ETF where it makes up at least 40% of the fund’s value.
With XLM ticking at least one of these boxes, the research suggests it’s better positioned than most altcoins to break into mainstream U.S. capital markets if regulators green-light the program.
Whisk goes live
Recently, Crypto News Flash reported that Stellar’s Protocol 23, nicknamed Whisk, just hit mainnet. It introduces parallel processing, unified event formatting, and optimizations for Soroban smart contracts aimed at higher throughput and lower costs.
For developers, that means cleaner integrations; for users, faster and cheaper transactions. Performance upgrades during risk-on periods can be powerful tailwinds for network usage, and by extension, XLM sentiment.
U.S. GDP data on-chain via Stellar
At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Commerce gave Stellar a big credibility boost by publishing its quarterly GDP figures directly on the network. That means key economic data is now stored immutably on-chain, where anyone can verify it.
This is more than a payments or remittances story, but also a sign that Stellar is proving itself as serious infrastructure for anchoring government-grade datasets. And because the network is public and permissionless, this critical information is accessible to everyone, not locked away behind closed systems.
User base and Transactions are Climbing
Stellar’s user base is on the rise, with the number of accounts climbing from 8.6 million to 9.7 million over the past year. The Activity on the network is also heating up: between July and August alone, Stellar processed 264.6 million payments, marking its busiest two-month stretch in more than two years.
Whisk’s parallelization is designed to push this higher. Rising successful transactions, especially if paired with stable fees, tend to correlate with healthier on-chain economies and steadier demand for native assets like XLM.
To further boost adoption, Telegram rolled out Stellar support in its built-in crypto wallet, giving over 100 million users the ability to transfer XLM without leaving the platform.
