Investing.com - Stellar has been one of the hottest cryptocurrencies in January, jumping into the top ten based on market capitalization.
Big gains have been the rule since December, with Stellar's Lumen, or XLM, up 300% in the past week alone.
That's driven the company's market cap to the $15 billion level, making it the seventh biggest, according to Investing.com data.
Like Ripple, Stellar's blockchain ledger technology is attracting global business partners.
Its currently working with U.S. tech giant IBM (NYSE:IBM) on a cross-border payment platform.
Stellar's technology allows users to exchange government-backed currencies.
Transactions take just a few seconds to complete.
But Stellar, which went live in 2015, is not your average player in the booming cryptocurrency business--its run by a non-profit foundation.