Stellar’s native token XLM continued its impressive rally over the past week, overtaking Cardano in market capitalization rankings and grabbing the spotlight in the crypto market. At the heart of this surge is a major announcement involving DTCC, one of the key institutions behind the infrastructure of US financial markets, revealing plans to enable the tokenization of assets held in DTC custody on the Stellar network.
Key drivers behind the rally
Following a brief pullback over the weekend, XLM regained upward momentum. The asset pushed higher for three consecutive days since last Wednesday, peaking at $0.297 on Saturday. Although XLM subsequently retraced slightly, at the time of writing it was still up 8% in the past 24 hours and trading at $0.26.
Recent figures show Stellar’s market capitalization has reached $8.87 billion, surpassing Cardano’s $8.37 billion. This move positions Stellar as the 13th largest crypto asset by market cap, gaining notable traction among investors.
10x Research emphasized that Stellar posted one of the strongest charts of the past week, with XLM surging 76% in just seven days.
Crypto research platform 10x Research also highlighted Stellar as one of this week’s most eye-catching performers. According to their analysis, XLM closing above its 7-day moving average marks a positive technical signal, while staying above the 30-day average further supports a bullish outlook.
DTCC partnership and network growth expectations
A key theme driving the rally is the partnership between the Stellar Development Foundation and DTCC, which manages settlement and custody processes for assets totaling more than $114 trillion. The initiative aims to tokenize assets such as Russell 1000 equities, ETFs, and US Treasury bonds on Stellar’s public blockchain, with live tokenized assets expected to launch in early 2027.
Glossary: DTCC is a central institution providing clearing, settlement, and post-trade infrastructure services for the US capital markets. Tokenization refers to creating a digital representation of traditional assets like stocks, bonds, or funds on a blockchain, allowing for faster and programmable asset transfers.
The Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit supporting ecosystem growth, is seen gaining heightened visibility beyond pure crypto transactions. Its collaboration with DTCC hints that Stellar could play a significant role in digitalizing traditional finance assets in the future.
New steps in payment adoption
Another major development in terms of network adoption came via Cash App, a Block subsidiary. The payment platform has launched USDC transactions over Stellar for its 60 million users, a move expected to boost the network’s scope in daily payment use cases.
Meanwhile, Bermuda confirmed its plans to migrate national payment services to the Stellar network. Should this rollout materialize, Bermuda will become one of the first public authorities to move their country’s economic transactions on-chain. The transition also aims to reduce merchant fees, which currently can reach as high as 10%.
