Stellar SURGE: Digital money esteem ROCKETS after Stripe trench bitcoin

STELLAR has surged after Stripe, the company which allows individuals and businesses to accept payments online, announced it could add support for the cryptocurrency Stellar (XLM) has risen by 20 per cent and is now valued at 58.96 cents.

Its market capitalisation is now roughly $10.3billion, making it the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.

Market capitalisation refers to the total dollar market value of a company's outstanding shares.

The average time for stellar transactions takes from two to five seconds And the company, which helps more than 100,000 businesses with online financial transactions, said few online merchants want to accept cryptocurrency as a payment.

Following Stripe’s statement, the company announced it would no longer be supporting bitcoin payments, the company’s aim is to do this by April 23.

Despite this, Stripe is considering adopting stellar.

Stripe’s current clients include Lyft, Deliveroo, Grab and Target Tom Karlo, Stripe product manager, wrote in a blog post: “We may add support for Stellar (to which we provided seed funding) if substantive use continues to grow.

"It's possible that Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or another Bitcoin variant, will find a way to achieve significant popularity while keeping settlement times and transaction fees very low.

“Bitcoin itself may become viable for payments again in the future."

Despite the revelation, bitcoin has remained reasonably steady and currently lies at $11,298.

Stellar uses the same blockchain technology as bitcoin however, one huge difference is that it allows users to quickly exchange government-backed currencies like turning pounds into dollars.

IBM is using stellar’s network to develop cross-border payments system with some large banks. Deloitte, consulting firm is also a partner.

Ripple is also being used by Santander and to speed up cross-border payments between the US and the UK.