Hedera HBAR vs. Stellar XLM: Financial Inclusion at Scale AllinCrypto December 17, 2025
Two recent developments for Stellar and Hedera have highlighted how blockchain infrastructure is being used to solve real-world financial issues.
Interestingly, Hiveonline’s migration from Stellar XLM to Hedera HBAR and the Marshall Islands’ launch of a Stellar-based universal basic income (UBI) program show how network design choices really do matter.
Together, both distributed ledgers are serving real-world use cases on a global scale as the crypto markets enter a volatile 2026.
Hiveonline Moves to Hedera from Stellar
Hiveonline, a Danish fintech that serves small farmers across Africa, recently completed a full migration of its platform and more than 75,000 users from Stellar XLM to Hedera Hashgraph.
Its mission is to make small farmers bankable by converting community trust, crop forecasts, and delivery records into verifiable digital credit histories.
According to Hedera, as Hiveonline scaled, fluctuating transaction fees on Stellar became a barrier for entry for farmers and use cases. For users living on less than $2 a day, minor fee volatility created usability issues. Hedera’s fixed, USD-pegged fees costing fractions of a cent regardless of network congestion gave the predictability Hiveonline apparently needed.
The migration also utilized the Hedera Token Service, allowing Hiveonline to manage stablecoins, savings-group shares, vouchers, and debt instruments without relying on smart contracts.
The result is a growing ecconomy on-chain where farmers are able to exchange value, such as swapping crop data for fertilizer vouchers, without ever dealing with harsh transaction fees.
The Marshall Islands’ Stellar UBI Experiment
Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands has taken a different approach and is using the Stellar network to distribute the world’s first on-chain UBI program via a digital sovereign bond called USDM1.
Backed one-to-one by short-term US Treasury bills, USDM1 will be distributed through digital wallets to citizens across the islands.
Stellar’s focus on payments and asset issuances made it well-suited for a government-led disbursement program for UBI. Funds can be sent directly to recipients’ wallets, proving the network’s robustness and cost efficiency compared to other networks like Etheruem, which would have very high fees.
Officials emphasized that the program is fiscal, not monetary, and does not compromise national sovereignty, instead using blockchain tech as a more efficient delivery rail for public finance.
Recent adoptions of Hedera and Stellar show that crypto is becoming more popularized for everyday use cases.
As blockchain networks enter deeper into public finance and global economies, use cases may soon be reflected in token price increases once liquidity returns to the market.
The post Hedera HBAR vs. Stellar XLM: Financial Inclusion at Scale first appeared on AllinCrypto.
