Stellar, a new digital currency from Jed McCaleb

Jed McCaleb, the founder both Mt. Gox and Ripple, unveiled his latest, much anticipated cryptocurrency project on Thursday, a user-friendly product that aims to encourage mainstream adoption of digital money, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The new platform is a decentralized gateway for digital currency to fiat currency transfers.

Like bitcoin and Ripple, the Stellar network will operate with an open-source protocol, meaning anybody can work to improve the software. Also as with bitcoin and Ripple, it will have its own internal digital currency, called stellar. Stellar, like Ripple, will allow cross-border transactions that use digital currency as a technological ‘middleman’ for fiat transfers.

Notably, 95% of the currency is being given away for free at the outset, the bulk of it from an initial issuance of 100 billion coins created by the not-for-profit foundation that will run the project. New coins will be later added at no cost to the circulation at a rate of 1% per year.

Of the 95 billion coins to be distributed, half of those will be available free to applicants who place orders via Facebook. The other half will be reserved for charities working in the fields of economic development and poverty alleviation and non-profits that are early adopters of digital money.

Joyce Kim, executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, said in a statement that other digital currencies “eliminate most of the world” by requiring those who want to get hold of them to either put money in or mine for it.

By offering a cost-free alternative, Kim hopes that many more people will be introduced to the world of cryptocurrencies.

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