Bitcoin has certainly gotten its fair share of attention this year as it made its spectacular rise from around $1,000 per Bitcoin on January 1, 2017. Bitcoin ended 2017 at the incredible price of $14,150 per Bitcoin which means it returned a bit over 14 times the US dollars invested in it during the calendar year 2017.

You would think nothing could beat that kind of return, right? You would be wrong. Try this out for size. The seemingly lowly Stellar Lumens (XLM) left Bitcoin in its star dust from a return point of view in 2017. 

Starting the year out worth less than one cent per Lumen (actually about .0025 per Lumen), XLM ended 2017 at an amazing .36 per Lumen. Thirty six cents does not sound like much compared to $14,150 does it. Until you do the math and discover that XLM returned 144 times the US dollars invested in it during the calendar year 2017. Lets do the math:

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Bitcoin (BTC): (see 2017 price range here)

Jan 1, 2017 - $1000 invested in Bitcoin equals about one Bitcoin. 

Dec. 31, 2017 - one Bitcoin equals $14,150 or 14+ times the amount invested on 1-1-17.

Stellar Lumens (XLM): (see 2017 price range here)

Jan 1, 2017 - $1000 invested in Stellar Lumens equals about 400,000 Lumens @ .0025 each.

Dec. 31, 2017 - 400,000 lumens equal $144,000 or 144 times the amount invested on 1-1-17 (@ .36 per Lumen). 

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You heard that correctly, 144 times the initial investment on 1-1-17. Stellar Lumens managed to generate that unbelievable return while also substantially increasing the number of lumens during the year as well. 

This resulted in Stellar Lumens ending the year by increasing its market cap a staggering 332 times over where it started in 2017  (it went from a market cap of 17 million to nearly 5.7 billion in one year)!!
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So what caused Stellar Lumens to have this kind of spectacular return?

At least one factor was the partnership Stellar announced with IBM and KlickEx that we covered in this article here on the blog. So, while much of the world was focused on Bitcoin, another seemingly obscure cryptocurrency actually stole the show in 2017. Most people were unaware that Stellar.org even existed, but regular readers here were aware that Stellar exists and partnered with IBM and KlickEx in 2017.

So, when your friends ask you if you have heard about Bitcoin, ask them if they have heard about Stellar Lumens  :-)        

or        here is a thought question you might ask them:

            What number is larger $14,150  or $144,000?  :-)

Interesting footnote: One expert who is reader here actually told me to think about looking into Stellar Lumens this summer after analyzing its potential. It is experts like this that really help me out in understanding what is actually going in the global payments system space. Cannot thank them enough!