Stellar’s $XLM jumped 11% to $0.45, riding a wave of good news. The growth comes as the network gears up for a major upgrade and benefits from recent legal wins in crypto.
The project stands at a crossroads — technical improvements and fresh interest could push prices higher, but market winds keep shifting. Can $XLM smash through resistance before CPI data shakes markets?
Ripple’s $125M settlement with the SEC has become a major catalyst for Stellar ($XLM), removing a longstanding cloud of regulatory uncertainty.
With the court’s 2023 ruling stating that public exchange sales of $XRP are not securities, Stellar (which shares Ripple’s technical DNA) stands to benefit materially. Institutional confidence is up, particularly in cross-border payments and remittances, where Stellar has long been a leader.
At the same time, Stellar stands on the verge of a transformative technical leap with its upcoming Protocol 23 upgrade, currently slated for a validator vote on September 3.
This major network evolution introduces two major developments: parallel transaction processing that dramatically improves efficiency, and the Soroban smart contract platform designed for high-performance decentralized applications.
Together, these enhancements position Stellar to handle up to 5,000 transactions per second, a capability that squarely pits it against Ethereum in the rapidly growing areas of DeFi and real-world asset tokenization.
Market participants have responded enthusiastically to these developments, driving a 260% increase in trading volume, surpassing $1 billion as developers actively test the new Protocol 23 features.
Perhaps more telling is the 199% month-over-month increase in real-world asset (RWA) transactions recorded in July, indicating accelerating institutional adoption ahead of the upgrade’s final validator vote on August 14.
Beyond tech upgrades, Stellar’s integration with Visa and growing DeFi activity are also fueling optimism. Its ISO 20022 compliance enhances its appeal for streamlined remittances and corporate payments. At the same time, expansion in the Asia-Pacific region through Marketnode, in partnership with Euroclear and DTCC, shows its growing institutional reach.
$XLM has broken out from the inverse head and shoulders formation on the 1-hour chart, with the neckline breach igniting an impulsive rally towards the $0.4700 target zone.
The left shoulder, head, and right shoulder are well-defined, with the breakout candle supported by a clear jump in volume. Following the breakout from the neckline, $XLM climbed rapidly, leaving minimal pullback opportunities as buyers pressed the advantage.
This run pushed $XLM above both the 50-day SMA at $0.4196 and the 100-period SMA at $0.4111. The SMAs are now in full bullish alignment, with the shorter moving average leading the uptrend and acting as a dynamic support line during minor consolidations.
The RSI touched highs above 77 during the breakout and has since cooled to 65.73, suggesting momentum remains healthy but not in extreme overbought territory.
If RSI holds above 60, the likelihood of trend continuation stays elevated. However, the bears would be watching for further dips in the RSI, possibly towards 50, which would show a weakening momentum and trend shift.
The MACD also reflects strong upward momentum, with the MACD line well above the signal line and the histogram still printing positive bars, though the most recent bars show mild contraction, hinting at a possible short-term pause.
A retest of the neckline area around $0.4200-$0.4250 could serve as a key validation level, where buyers aim to defend and maintain the breakout structure.
