By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 23rd, 2024
An attacker exploited a concurrency bug and created 2.25 billion XLM. Despite there were no media reports on the matter, Stellar stated that they had mentioned the bug twice in their release notes where they made it clear that the bug was exploited.
As per Messari Research, Stellar suffered an inflation bug in 2017 which created over 2 billion XLM. Stellar has since patched this with an equivalent token burn.
https://twitter.com/MessariNews/status/1110901751429955586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1110901751429955586&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbitcoinexchangeguide.com%2Fmessari-report-uncovers-2-25-billion-xlm-inflation-bug-in-stellars-code-in-2017-patched-quietly%2F
These 2.25 billion XLM represented 25% of the circulating supply of the digital asset. There was also no media reporting the issue and the team behind Stellar did not comment on the matter. The funds created have been sold to the market at the beginning of 2017.
Stellar, currently the ninth largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a total market value of over 2 billion, noted that the company has not concealed the issue. More precisely, a Stellar representative is cited in the report stating that the aforementioned bug and its exploitation were mentioned twice in the protocol’s release notes.
They wrote:
“We took the additional step of burning Lumens to “true up” the supply, so that current $XLM owners wouldn’t be diluted and our projected total supply would remain accurate. We recognize that Stellar has since become significant financial software, and our disclosure standards have grown to reflect that reality.
There’s been no notable bug since, and if there were we would disclose it in full detail as soon as it was patched. As we announced last month in our 2019 Roadmap we have already committed to a full accounting of all of SDF’s Lumens by the end of the year, and more details around this old bug were going to be (and still will be) part of that.”
Stellar and Coinbase are Giving Away 1% of all XLM
In the mean time, Coinbase Earn announced that they are giving out one billion Stellar Lumens (XLM) from the Stellar Development Foundation to millions of eligible users to teach them about the Stellar protocol.
The move is part of Coinbase Earn, the exchange’s crypto-focused educational program. The company stated that this particular session of the program is its “biggest yet.” Each eligible U.S. user can gain up to $50 for using the program to study the Stellar protocol.
According to the Coinbase Earn website, the program developed in partnership with Stellar consists of five educational videos of up to three minutes each. After watching the videos and completing a set of corresponding quizzes, users reportedly will earn XLM tokens as a reward.
It is important to emphasize that 1 billion XLM represents 1% of the total circulating tokens, so Stellar’s move is no small thing. The team bets strongly on the adoption and education of users as one of the best strategies to grow.
Also, the platform offers a referral program that allows users to earn up to $40 by promoting the platform and attracting new customers. Each user can invite a friend to access Coinbase earn, and for each video watched by the new user, the referring one will receive $10 in XLM.
Stellar is not the only option. Coinbase Earn also has options for Zcash, BAT and 0x. However, the Stellar Lumens offer is by far the most generous.
However, some of the analysts think that part of this bullish pattern could be attributed to the business scheme and promotion strategy of Stellar’s team, as well as the recent changes in the foundation’s management.
As we previously reported, Mozilla’s COO Denelle Dixon succeeded Jed McCaleb, Stellar’s co-founder as he moves to focus on the network protocol and adoption strategy.
Partnerships With Western Union and IBM
As it has became known, the world’s leading operator of cross-border and cross-currency money transfers Western Union has entered in a partnership with Thunes – a Stellar-backed cross-border payments network built for emerging markets and the main aim of this co-op is to allow Westen Union clients to transfer funds directly into recipients’ mobile wallets around the world.
Also, as we previously reported, IBM announced that its global payment network, IBM Blockchain World Wire (built on the Stellar blockchain), has enabled payment locations in 72 countries, with 47 currencies and 44 banking endpoints and that it has signed letters of intent with six global banks.