There’s a new kind of cryptocash in town going by the name of “Stellar”, but unlike other digital monies, it plays well with both existing ones and regular fiat currencies. What’s more, it’s giving away Stellars for free. Sounds intriguing? Read on.

Stellar, as described in its blog post, is a “decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies.” Simply put, it’s a service that helps to easily send money anywhere, but you can choose the type of currency it arrives in. For example, if you sent US dollars to a friend in Europe, you can set it so they recieve the cash in euros. What makes it unique from other traditional money sending services is that it has its own digital currency called Stellar, whose value is determined by the market, just like Bitcoin.

The developers behind stellar explain that its main purpose is to provide a conversion path between other currencies. It uses a consensus algorithm instead of mining, and so transactions are completed in seconds.

“Each node in the network communicates with a set of other nodes that it believes will not collude (such as nodes run by universities, governments, and companies). Importantly, it doesn’t need to trust the nodes themselves — it just needs to believe the nodes won’t work together to produce the same malicious result. Consensus is then reached by an iterative process, which results in each new ledger being decided upon every few seconds. Correspondingly, transactions confirm nearly instantly, and no mining is needed,” says an explaination of how its algorithm works.

Another thing you need to know about Stellar is that its supply increases at a fixed rate of one percent per year to account for both economic growth and lost stellars.

Stellar is backed by Stripe, a company that allows users to accept payments via the Internet. It’s invested $3 million in Stellar and in return, it’s received two percent of all Stellars, while its CEO Patrick Collison has been made one of the Board Members at Stellar. Even so, Stripe doesn’t run the new cryptocurrency, but it is bullish on the cryptocurrency space in general and believes that systems such as what Stellar offers should have a place in the world.

Stellar is in the early stages of bridging the gap between traditional and digital currencies, so it’s inviting developers who are interested to work on this new open source project to participate.

If you’re still doubtful about digital currencies and don’t want to risk your own money investing in it or just trying it out, you can start using Stellar for free.

All you have to do is register here, create your own memorable username and password, and there’s an option to include your email so in case you forget your password or username there’s a way to retrieve your account.

After registering, you’ll be presented with a guide that explains how to get your free Stellar. You need to connect your stellar account to Facebook to receive your first 5,000 STR, and if you want another 1,000 STR, you need to confirm your email address and enter a retrieval code which you will receive in your email. The tutorial will then teach you how easy it is to send stellar. Since it’s your first transaction, if you send 1,000 STR, you will get 1,000 STR for your good deed as  Stellar recommends three organizations that either help coders (yeswecode.org), end poverty (watsi.org) or end illiteracy (literacybridge.org) in poverty stricken lands.

When you’ve completed all the tasks, you’ll have 6,000 SRT in your account.  So what are you going to do with your SRTs?  You can keep donating to charities or organizations of your choice, keep it, or use it to entice your friends to create their own Stellar accounts and send one another Stellars.  Stellar is still in its early stages so its use is still limited, but just like Bitcoin, it has a huge potential.

There’s no harm in trying when you have nothing to lose, as it’s being given away entirely free. So, what are you waiting for?

photo credit: zcopley via photopin cc