Did you notice the gift in your account?
Your balance has been credited with lumens (XLM), the currency of the Stellar network. The credit was done on January 15 and shows in your account ledger as a “transfer.”
Also, last week we released a major upgrade to our trading engine - give it a whirl on our new pro trader interface at https://trade.kraken.com.
What is the Stellar network?
Stellar shares many commonalities with Ripple, including a founder. The protocol has changed but many of the same features remain. The stated mission of the Stellar Development Foundation (a non-profit) is “to connect people to low-cost financial services to fight poverty and maximize individual potential.” Lofty yet noble ambitions!
Read more:
https://www.stellar.org/how-it-works/use-cases/
What’s up with lumens?
Lumens are to Stellar as ether are to Ethereum. Lumens are the native asset of the Stellar network. At present, they have a value of about $0.52 each. They effectively work like any other cryptocurrency -- they’re tradeable, transferrable, and they pay transaction fees on the Stellar network where you can do other cool things.
Read more:
https://www.stellar.org/lumens/
Why the XLM credit?
Kraken is the only top exchange participating in the second round of the Stellar giveaway. Stellar has reserved 19 billion XLM for people who hold bitcoin. 16 billion XLM were given away in the second round. The idea is that giving away lumens will encourage further development of and participation in the Stellar ecosystem. Even if you’re not too interested in the Stellar project, who can argue with free money, right?
By the way, if all this seems familiar, Kraken also participated in the first round of the stellar giveaway, when 3 billion XLM were distributed. So for some of you this is the second XLM credit! To get get in on the first round though, you had to have a bitcoin balance with Kraken on July 4, 2016.
How did the second round work?
Your share of the 16 billion XLM was credited to your account according to the Kraken bitcoin balance you had as of the first bitcoin block mined on June 26, 2017 UTC (bitcoin block #472889).
Read more:
https://www.stellar.org/blog/bitcoin-claim-lumens-2/
Can I trade my lumens for something else?
Kraken offers an XLM/XBT (lumen/bitcoin) market where you can buy and sell lumens for bitcoin. As with any kind of trading you should pay attention to the depth of the order book and consider utilizing limit orders to avoid slippage (instead of market orders that can see a lot of slippage in thin markets).
Please note that our XLM market is listed as “STRBTC” on the trading platform (
https://trade.kraken.com).
Stellar and Kraken are pleased to offer you this gift and deeply appreciate your participation in the digital currency ecosystem.
The Kraken Team