Stellar Removes XLM Liquidity by Burning 55bln Tokens Worth $4.50bln

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has revealed a new program for the development of its ecosystem that involves burning 55 billion Stellar Lumens (XLM) tokens.

Token burning plan revolves around the strategy of turning the network more efficient in the months ahead.

The SDF burnt more than 55 billion XLM tokens, leaving more than 85 billion tokens for its operations.

XLM, at the time of writing this article, trades at ~$0.0808, indicating that the value of the burnt tokens is roughly $4.50 billion.

The crypto has appreciated nearly 17.6% in the past 24 hours. Including the XLM tokens that are being used for various purposes, the total quantity of XLM in existence (total liquidity) is 50 billion.

The SDF has pointed out that the burn was intended to improve the efficiency of the system in the months ahead. The organization has issued a statement justifying their decision to burn tokens:

“SDF can be leaner and do the work it was created to do using fewer lumens. Over the years we’ve also seen that giveaways and airdrops have diminishing effects, especially in the outsized amounts our original plan was designed to support. So a smaller public-facing program would have just as much impact.”

The development firm further stated that it will invest the remaining 12 billion tokens worth ~$1.02 billion into “an aggressive program of direct development and advocacy for Stellar.”

SDF stated that it anticipates doubling the number of employees to roughly 60 by the end of 2019. While two billion XLM tokens, worth ~$170 million, will be set aside for the support of Stellar ecosystem, 1 billion XLM tokens, worth ~$85 million, will be used for Stellar’s infrastructure grant program.

Additional tokens will be used to invest in unique projects, development of new tools, Stellar Enterprise Fund and other apps. In September 2019, Stellar stated that it aims to terminate inflation characteristic of its native token in the forthcoming upgrade.

The Stellar Development Foundation opined that programmers are interested in removing the characteristic as it no longer helps partakers in the network.