Stellar

Stellar is a payment network for issuing and exchanging assets, using federated Byzantine agreement rather than mining or staking. Anyone can issue a token representing a currency or claim, and the ledger includes a built-in exchange that finds paths between them — the network is a settlement and conversion layer rather than a computation platform.

Consensus by overlapping quorum slices

Each node chooses which other nodes it trusts, and agreement emerges from the overlap between those choices. There is no mining and no staking reward. Nodes participate because they need the network to function, which suits its target users: institutions running payment corridors rather than validators seeking yield.

Anchors connect the ledger to money

An anchor accepts a deposit in local currency and issues a corresponding token on-chain, redeeming it on the way out. The chain moves the token in seconds; the anchor handles the regulated part. This makes the practical trust question about the specific anchor holding your funds, not about Stellar itself.

Trustlines make issuance safe

An account must explicitly opt into holding a given issued asset before it can receive one. That single rule prevents the spam and forced-airdrop problems other chains struggle with, and it means a balance sheet cannot be polluted by tokens nobody asked for.

Path payments convert automatically

A payment can be sent in one asset and received in another, with the ledger routing through the built-in order book to find a conversion path. For cross-currency settlement this collapses several steps — send, convert, receive — into a single atomic operation.

Supply and fees

Supply is fixed with no ongoing issuance, and a small fee per operation is destroyed as anti-spam. The network stopped its earlier inflation mechanism by community vote, so the supply schedule is now static rather than growing.