The founder of Mt. Gox and Ripple Labs, Jed McCaleb, launched his new project Stellar that will encourage further digital money adoption.
Jed McCaleb, the original founder of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox and co-founder of payment network Ripple Labs, has launched its secret virtual currency project called Stellar.
As The Wall Street Journal reported, the new project is a decentralized platform for making virtual currency to fiat currency transfers. Stellar will include its own in-house digital currency called ‘stellar’.
This is how Stellar is described on its website: “Stellar is a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies. This means users can, for example, send a transaction from their Yen balance and have it arrive in Euros, Yen, or even bitcoin. We’re expecting to support the usual categories of transactions: payments to a merchant, remittances back home, or rent splits with a roommate.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, Stellar will act as a transaction gateway, enabling to use both fiat and digital currencies. It will also allow making cross-border transactions that utilize digital currency as a ‘middleman’ for fiat transfers. In-house currency stellar will be distributed to its users for free.
Stellar board members include Keith Rabois, the former Square Chief Operating Officer and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. Among the project advisors are Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer and AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant.
Joyce Kim, executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, said the new platform is a bridge between fiat and virtual currencies. He added: “This is probably the best way to bring the best of both worlds together.”
Joyce Kim said the hope is that its developers in different countries and nations will create products and services that will help Stellar to better serve their local communities.
Stellar’s largest aim is to boost cryptocurrencies’ adoption. The team is also focused on overcoming three main hurdles of digital currency, including education, access, and volatility. Another Stellar’s goal is to make it cost-free for people to buy virtual currency.
McCaleb left his Ripple Labs company in 2013. Then in May, he announced he wants to sell his stake of XRP, the currency of the Ripple project. The announcement provoked a rapid sell-off of the currency and its price decreased by 40%. Still, McCaleb has not yet sold his XRP.
Originally, McCaleb was the founder of OpenCoin and then served as its CEO. The firm was then renamed to Ripple and included Chris Larsen, its current CEO. According to McCaleb, OpenCoin was an attempt to create a bitcoin network that did not rely on mining.
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