Stellar price in focus as Bell upgrade heads toward mainnet vote
Published on 11/08/2026 at 13:03 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWSKey Stellar Market Drivers
- Bell Protocol 30 is live on Stellar's testnet after the November 3 validator vote.
- Validators are scheduled to vote on the mainnet upgrade on November 23 at 17:00 UTC.
- MetaMask has added Stellar as a default network in its mobile and extension products.
- Investing.com listed XLM at USD 0.15018, with a market capitalization of USD 5.32 billion.
The Stellar price remains tied to a developing network catalyst rather than a completed mainnet upgrade. Bell, Protocol 30, is now live on Stellar's testnet, while validators are scheduled to vote on the mainnet version on November 23, 2026, at 17:00 UTC.
Stellar's official status update records completion of the testnet upgrade on November 3 at 17:05 UTC. The Stellar Development Foundation says Bell contains three main changes: muxed contract addresses for serving multiple customers through one smart contract, ML-DSA post-quantum signature verification within smart contracts, and millisecond ledger timing.
What the Upgrade Changes
The testnet milestone is not the same as mainnet activation. The foundation's published schedule says the mainnet vote will take place on November 23 at 17:00 UTC, and the upgrade takes effect only if validators approve it. Bell also does not make the entire Stellar network post-quantum: network transaction signatures remain Ed25519 for now. The foundation says the protocol change removes a technical barrier to faster ledger close times, but does not itself make Stellar produce blocks faster than five seconds.
For investors, the vote creates a defined implementation event but not a guaranteed outcome. Wallets, exchanges, indexers and other infrastructure providers must support the changed ledger format and the new W address type. The upgrade's practical impact will therefore depend on validator approval and ecosystem adoption, not only on the software release.
Access Expands Through MetaMask
A separate access development arrived on October 29. MetaMask said Stellar became a default network in its mobile and extension products, giving existing accounts a Stellar address and enabling users to manage XLM, trustline assets and Soroban tokens alongside assets on other networks. The integration could reduce wallet friction, although usage and transaction growth are not established by the announcement alone.
At the time of the retrieved Investing.com page, XLM was listed at USD 0.15018. The same page showed a 24-hour volume of USD 76.86 million, a market capitalization of USD 5.32 billion, a rank of 16 and a 52-week range of USD 0.13725 to USD 0.31124. These figures describe the displayed market snapshot; no UTC prior-day closing basis is used here for an additional daily percentage comparison.
More coverage is available on the Stellar topic page.
