Cryptocurrency markets are generally buoyant this week following a month of lethargy in October. Some altcoins are outperforming others and one has reached a five week high gaining 18% this week alone.

Stellar Lumens is recovering strongly, with a 3% gain on the day and almost 20% over the week XLM is one of the market’s top performers right now. This momentum may have something to do with the announcement of an airdrop to Stellar wallet users.

Most popular crypto wallet with over 25 million users added Lumens as 4th asset (after BTC, ETH & BCH) and announced $125 Million XLM airdrop!https://t.co/yUBx0aWQkD https://t.co/pOuLGDTGSY

— Stellar Lumens (@StellarLumens) November 6, 2018

According to the Stellar blog leading blockchain wallet provider Blockchain.com will be giving away $125 million in XLM to those that sign up for its services. The first batch of lumens will be given away this week to those that sign up via its website.

The philanthropic gesture arrives from the company’s desire to connect the world to crypto and help users interact with digital currencies in a safe and easy way;

“The first step to becoming an active participant in the crypto ecosystem is getting a crypto asset. By offering XLM to our users for free, we hope to help build a bigger community of crypto users.”

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) stated that this was the largest airdrop of XLM to date with up to 500 million tokens being distributed. It added that “Lumen distribution has always been core to SDF’s vision and strategy, and the network has grown enough for mass distributions to make sense.”

Blockchain.com does require identification verification, however, to prevent users claiming more than their entitlement. It will give $25 worth of XLM to those that sign up, verify their identity, and have or open a Blockchain wallet on the site.

Jed McCaleb, Stellar co-founder who was also deeply involved with Ripple and Mt.Gox, said that airdrops are essential to onboarding more users and increasing adoption;

“We believe that airdrops are central to creating a more inclusive digital economy. Giving away lumens for free is an invitation to communities to design the services they need. By working with Blockchain to increase the availability and active use of lumens on the network, we will increase the network’s utility by many orders of magnitude.”

Hard forks and airdrops are just as influential on short term crypto prices as major exchange listings. Stellar is currently on an upswing as is Bitcoin Cash which is predicted to go even higher as the blockchain split approaches.

The post Big Stellar Airdrop Lifts XLM Prices to Five Week High appeared first on NewsBTC.

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