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- Stellar’s integration with Mastercard’s Crypto Credential framework has simplified cross-border crypto payments by offering identity validation and regulatory compliance.
- As of June 2025, XLM is trading at $0.275, with a market capitalization of $8.45 billion, supported by high investor interest and liquidity.
Stellar (XLM) price stood at $0.2713 on Wednesday, June 4, showing that its price has remained steady as it grows its global payment facilities. For context, Stellar is a blockchain platform that enables quick and affordable cross-border payments. Moreover, it is now getting involved in creating a major presence in the financial industry through strategic partnerships that will increase blockchain use in the real world.
Will Stellar (XLM) Lead the Cross-Border Payments Space?
Stellar’s original purpose was to assist with international money transfers and today it is seen as a major player in the remittance and digital payment industries. Due to its wide network, money can move quickly with low fees and without relying on traditional correspondent banking. Stellar’s trading activity over the last year has shown it undergoes fluctuations and attracts more international investors.
In October 2024, progress was marked at the Meridian conference in London when Stellar announced a partnership with Mastercard, as reported by CNF. The partnership benefits from Mastercard’s Crypto Credential, a digital framework that allows users to send crypto payments using easy identifiers like email addresses while ensuring compliance through automated background checks.
The Mastercard integration simplifies identity validation across blockchain transactions and adds a regulatory layer suited for cross-border financial use. Right after the October 15 news, the price of XLM went from $0.0899 in June to $0.5508 by November. Even after that correction, the XLM price stayed relatively higher in the next few months with an average of $0.3313 in December 2024 and $0.4306 in January 2025.
After retracing, the asset went up to $0.2654 in May and now it stands at $0.275 in June 2025 with a market capitalization of around $8.45 billion. When calculated using all available XLM tokens, the market cap is almost $13.5 billion, which shows that many investors continue to be interested and liquidity is high, as highlighted in the previous report.
Some of the biggest digital wallets are already adopting Mastercard integration. Coins.ph in the Philippines was the first to adopt Crypto Credential, while Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin and London-based Wirex joined in later. A point to note is that Coins.ph is particularly focusing on the $37.2 billion remittance market in the Philippines, which fits perfectly with Stellar’s purpose.
Other Partnerships & Competition from XRP
Along with Mastercard, Stellar has partnerships with VISA and MoneyGram to make it easy for people to exchange digital and traditional payments. The deals give Stellar the chance to make its services available in places where people have limited banking options and must pay high fees for cross-border transfers.
Sending and receiving money via Stellar has many benefits: it is less expensive, moves quicker and is safe thanks to checking credentials. However, XLM faces severe competition from Ripple’s XRP that serves a similar purpose.
Recently, Ripple even partnered with Unicâmbio to launch XRP and RLUSD payments services for Europe-Brazil payments. Also, Ripple has tied up with over 100 banks that use XRP on the company’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service.
