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This Stellar glossary explains the 40 terms you are most likely to meet when you use, buy or build on the Stellar network, in plain English and grouped by theme. Each entry gives a short, accurate definition and, where we have one, a link to a deeper guide. New to the network? Start with what Stellar Lumens are, then come back here when a wallet or exchange uses an unfamiliar word.
Definitions follow the official Stellar developer documentation. Numbers such as fees and reserves are network settings that validators can change by vote, so treat them as current rather than permanent.
Network and consensus terms
How the Stellar network agrees on what happened, and how apps read that history.
Lumen (XLM)
The lumen is the native asset of the Stellar network, traded under the ticker XLM. Lumens pay transaction fees and fund the minimum balance every account must hold. Unlike tokens such as USDC, XLM has no issuer and needs no trustline. Our supply and tokenomics guide explains how many exist.
Stroop
A stroop is the smallest unit of XLM: 1 stroop equals 0.0000001 XLM. Fees and reserves are defined in stroops, and the base fee is 100 stroops, or 0.00001 XLM, per operation. See fees and speed for what a transfer really costs.
Ledger
A ledger is a snapshot of the whole network’s state, including every account, balance, offer and contract entry, at one moment. A new ledger closes about every 5 seconds with the transactions validators agreed on. Once a ledger closes, its transactions are final.
Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP)
SCP is how validators agree on each new ledger. It is a form of Federated Byzantine Agreement, introduced in a paper by Stanford professor David Mazières, and it uses no mining or staking. SCP favours safety over liveness: the network would rather pause than fork.
Quorum set
A quorum set is the list of validators a node chooses to trust, plus a threshold for how many of them must agree. Because these trust choices overlap across the network, validators reach agreement without any single central authority.
Validator
A validator is a Stellar Core node that votes on ledgers in consensus. Validators earn no rewards from the protocol; organisations run them because they rely on the network. Anyone can run one, but other validators decide whether to trust it.
Tier 1
Tier 1 is the group of organisations whose validators sit at the heart of most quorum sets. Requirements include three full validators with their own history archives, geographic spread and a 99.9%+ uptime target. Existing Tier 1 organisations, not SDF alone, decide on new members.
Horizon
Horizon is the REST API that wallets and explorers have long used to read Stellar data and submit transactions. SDF’s public Horizon instance keeps about one year of history; third-party providers may keep more.
Stellar RPC
Stellar RPC is a JSON-RPC service for current network state, smart contracts and transaction submission, renamed from Soroban-RPC in November 2024. It keeps only a short recent history window, about 7 days by default. SDF calls it the starting point for new builders.
Accounts and keys
What an account is, who controls it and what it costs to keep one open.
Account
An account is a ledger entry that holds balances, signers, trustlines and settings. It only exists once someone funds it with at least the minimum balance in XLM. Our wallet guide explains how to open one safely.
Public key (G… address)
Your public key is your account’s address: 56 characters starting with “G”. It is safe to share, and it is what people send funds to.
Secret key (S… key)
The secret key signs transactions for an account and starts with “S”. Whoever holds it controls the funds, so never paste it into a website or share it. Most wallets derive it from a recovery phrase.
Base reserve
The base reserve is the unit used to calculate minimum balances, currently 0.5 XLM. It is a network setting, so validators can change it by vote.
Minimum balance
Every account must keep two base reserves (1 XLM) plus one base reserve per subentry. An account with three trustlines therefore needs at least 2.5 XLM.
Subentry
A subentry is anything an account owns that takes up ledger space: a trustline, an open offer, an extra signer or a data entry. Each one adds 0.5 XLM to the minimum balance.
Sequence number
Every account has a sequence number, and each transaction must use the next one in line. This stops a signed transaction from being replayed and fixes the order of an account’s transactions.
Multisig
Multisig means giving an account several signers, each with a weight, plus thresholds for low, medium and high-security operations. It is used for shared treasuries and extra protection, for example by LOBSTR Vault. Details are in the signatures and multisig docs.
Muxed account (M… address)
A muxed address starts with “M” and combines a normal G account with a 64-bit ID. Muxed accounts don’t exist separately on the ledger: funds land in the underlying G account, while the ID tells a platform which customer they belong to. They are an alternative to memos.
Assets and trustlines
How tokens are issued on Stellar and how you can tell a real one from a copy.
Trustline
A trustline is an account’s explicit opt-in to hold one asset from one issuer. Before you can receive USDC, your account must trust Circle’s USDC, and each trustline adds 0.5 XLM to your reserve. Our stablecoins guide shows which issuers to trust.
Asset code
An asset code is a token’s short name, such as USDC or EURC: up to 4 characters (“alphanumeric 4”) or 5 to 12 (“alphanumeric 12”). Codes are not unique, so anyone can create a token called USDC. An asset is identified by its code plus its issuer.
Issuer
The issuer is the account that creates an asset. The combination of code and issuer is what makes an asset unique, and serious issuers link their account to a home domain so you can check who they are.
Home domain
A home domain is a website domain recorded on an account. It points wallets to that organisation’s stellar.toml file, connecting an on-chain issuer to a real-world company.
stellar.toml
The stellar.toml is a standard information file defined in SEP-1, published at /.well-known/stellar.toml on an organisation’s domain. It lists the organisation’s accounts, assets, validators and anchor services, and wallets read it to show verified asset details.
Authorization flags
Authorization flags are issuer settings that control who may hold an asset. AUTH_REQUIRED means the issuer must approve each trustline, AUTH_REVOCABLE lets it freeze holdings, AUTH_IMMUTABLE locks the flags forever, and AUTH_CLAWBACK_ENABLED turns on clawback. Regulated stablecoins and tokenised securities use them for compliance.
Clawback
Clawback lets an issuer take its asset back from a holder’s account, for example after fraud or a court order. It only applies to trustlines created after the issuer enabled it, so check an asset’s flags before you hold it.
Claimable balance
A claimable balance locks funds on the ledger for one or more named claimants, optionally with time conditions. Added in Protocol 15 in November 2020, it lets you send an asset to someone who has no trustline yet; they claim it when ready.
Payments and the DEX
The tools that move and convert value on Stellar.
Memo
A memo is an optional note on a transaction: text up to 28 bytes, a 64-bit ID number or a 32-byte hash. Exchanges often use it to identify your deposit, so a missing or wrong memo can delay or lose funds. Always copy the memo your exchange gives you; our guide to sending XLM covers this.
Path payment
A path payment sends one asset and delivers another, with the network converting along the way through order books and liquidity pools. Strict-send fixes the amount you send; strict-receive fixes the amount that arrives. It is the engine behind many cross-border payments.
DEX (SDEX)
The Stellar DEX is a decentralised exchange built into the protocol: a native order book where any account can place offers to trade any two assets. No smart contract is needed. See our overview of Stellar DeFi and dApps.
Liquidity pool (AMM)
Stellar added native automated market maker pools in Protocol 18 in November 2021. Each pool holds two assets, prices trades with a constant-product formula and charges a 0.3% fee that goes to liquidity providers. Soroban-based protocols such as Aquarius run their own pools alongside.
Anchors and SEPs
Stellar Ecosystem Proposals (SEPs) are shared standards that let wallets, anchors and apps work together.
Anchor
An anchor is a business, usually regulated, that connects Stellar to traditional money: it takes deposits in fiat and issues tokens, or redeems tokens for fiat. MoneyGram’s cash service works this way. Read more in our anchors and fiat ramps guide.
SEP-10
SEP-10, Stellar Web Authentication, lets a wallet prove it controls a Stellar account by signing a challenge transaction. Anchors use it to log users in without a separate password.
SEP-24
SEP-24 covers hosted deposits and withdrawals. The wallet opens the anchor’s own web page, where you complete identity checks and payment details, and the anchor then handles the transfer.
SEP-31
SEP-31 is an API for cross-border payments between a sending anchor and a receiving anchor. It is aimed at businesses moving remittances, such as Bitso acting as a receiving anchor for payouts in Latin America.
Soroban smart contracts
The programmable layer added to Stellar in 2024.
Soroban
Soroban is Stellar’s smart-contract platform, activated on mainnet with Protocol 20 on 20 February 2024 and fully open from 19 March 2024. Contracts are written in Rust. Our Soroban guide walks through how it works.
WASM
WASM, or WebAssembly, is the compact binary format that Soroban contracts compile to. Validators execute it in a sandbox, and fees cover the CPU instructions and ledger access a contract uses.
Stellar Asset Contract (SAC)
The Stellar Asset Contract is a built-in contract that lets any classic Stellar asset, including XLM and USDC, be used by Soroban contracts through a standard token interface. PayPal’s PYUSD uses it.
State archival
State archival keeps the ledger lean. Contract data has a time-to-live and pays rent to stay live; when the TTL runs out, the data is archived rather than deleted and can be restored. Protocol 23 reworked the system.
Ecosystem organisations and events
The names behind the network.
SDF (Stellar Development Foundation)
The Stellar Development Foundation is the non-profit created in 2014 to support Stellar’s development and growth. Led by CEO Denelle Dixon, it holds a large share of XLM under its mandate, about 29% of total supply at our latest check. Our tokenomics page breaks that down.
Meridian
Meridian is SDF’s annual conference, where many partnerships are announced. It began in Mexico City in 2019, ran virtually in 2020, then went to Rome (2022), Madrid (2023), London (2024), Rio de Janeiro (2025) and Lisbon (2026). Our partnerships timeline covers what came out of each.
Frequently asked questions
What is a stroop on Stellar?
A stroop is the smallest unit of XLM: one ten-millionth of a lumen, or 0.0000001 XLM. Fees and reserves are counted in stroops; the base fee is 100 stroops (0.00001 XLM) per operation.
Why do I need a trustline to receive a token?
Stellar makes accounts opt in to every asset except XLM. A trustline says which asset, from which issuer, your account accepts. It protects you from unwanted tokens and adds 0.5 XLM to your minimum balance.
What do Stellar addresses starting with G, S, M and C mean?
G is a public account address you can share, S is a secret key you must never share, M is a muxed address that adds a numeric ID to a G account, and C is a smart-contract address. Our explorer guide shows how to look any of them up.
What is the minimum balance for a Stellar account?
Two base reserves, which is 1 XLM at the current 0.5 XLM base reserve, plus 0.5 XLM for each subentry such as a trustline, offer or extra signer. See XLM fees and reserves for worked examples.
What does SEP mean in Stellar?
SEP stands for Stellar Ecosystem Proposal. SEPs are shared standards that wallets, anchors and apps follow so they work together, for example SEP-10 for logging in with a Stellar account and SEP-24 for hosted deposits and withdrawals.
