Stellar is a Layer-1 blockchain that allows “developers to create applications, issue assets, and connect to existing financial rails.” Unlike most blockchains, Stellar does not use a Proof-of-Work (PoW) or Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Instead, under the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a construction of the Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) consensus mechanism, each validator node decides which other validator nodes to trust, also known as a quorum set (or quorum slice). The validity and order of transactions are then determined through a system of federated voting where candidate transactions are first nominated to be included in the ledger, followed by a ballot protocol to ensure the unanimous confirmation of nominated transaction sets.

On Stellar, any asset can be tokenized (minted) onto the network for tracking, custody, and trading. Additional built-in features for assets issued on Stellar include custom KYC requirements (or compliance with other regulatory requirements) for tokenholders, multi-signature account control, and time-locked escrow. In partnership with Cheesecake Labs, Stellar offers the Stellar Asset Sandbox, which includes no-code tools for asset issuance and management as well as a testnet environment.