Bitcoin vs Stellar

Bitcoin is the first decentralized blockchain, secured by proof‑of‑work where miners expend SHA‑256 hash power to find valid blocks every ~10 minutes. The supply is capped at 21 million coins, with inflation halving roughly every four years—the most recent halving occurred on 20 April 2024. Upgrades like SegWit and Taproot have enabled second‑layer protocols such as the Lightning Network and emerging covenants via OP_CTV debates.

Stellar is a payments‑focused blockchain that uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a federated Byzantine agreement where each node chooses its own quorum slices. Anchors issue fiat‑backed tokens, and Stellar’s built‑in DEX offers path payments that can hop through multiple assets in a single transaction. The 2023 Soroban upgrade added WebAssembly smart contracts, enabling on‑chain AMMs, lending and other DeFi primitives.