Stellar Investment Calculator
What would buying XLM have been worth? Pick a plan and a start date and this replays it against real daily Stellar closes.
What XLM actually did, in the data this page replays
Measured from the 3,028 daily closes this page replays — 31 May 2018 to 13 September 2026, from Binance. Figures are bounded by that window, not by the asset’s whole life.
| History available | 8 years and 3 months (from Binance) |
|---|---|
| Bought on the first day, held to the last | 0.607× — a loss of 39.3% |
| Highest close in this window | $0.7347 on 11 May 2021 |
| Where it sits against that high | 75.6% below |
| Deepest fall | −90.5%, 25 July 2018 → 12 March 2020 |
| Time to get back to that peak | 10 months after the low — 6 January 2021 |
| Separate falls of 50% or more | 2 |
| Days spent more than 20% below a previous peak | 96.5% |
| Best calendar year | 2020: +181.8% |
| Worst calendar year | 2022: -74.3% |
| Annualised volatility | 102.1% |
XLM year by year
First close to last close each year. 2018 and 2026 are partial — the data starts mid-2018 and 2026 is still running.
| Year | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | -62.8% | partial year |
| 2019 | -60.4% | |
| 2020 | +181.8% | best full year |
| 2021 | +101.8% | |
| 2022 | -74.3% | worst full year |
| 2023 | +77.7% | |
| 2024 | +152% | |
| 2025 | -52.8% | |
| 2026 | -13.9% | partial year |
The part the calculator does not show you
Held from the first day in this data to the last, XLM returned 0.607× — a loss of 39.3%. Long holding periods are usually presented as the thing that rescues a volatile asset, and over this particular window for this particular coin, they did not. It is worth setting the calculator above to the full range and seeing that result written out before assuming time fixes an entry.
The deepest fall took XLM down 90.5%, from $0.3337 on 25 July 2018 to $0.03174 on 12 March 2020 — 20 months of falling. Getting back to that peak took a further 10 months, reached on 6 January 2021. Add those together and the round trip was 2 years and 5 months — the length of time someone who bought at the top had to hold before they were merely even again.
102.1% annualised volatility is ordinary for a major crypto asset and still several times a stock index. All XLM calculators →
Frequently asked questions
＋Would buying XLM on the first day of this data and holding have made money?
No. Held across the whole window the position ended at 0.607× — a loss of 39.3%. That is worth stating plainly because "hold long enough and it recovers" is the usual advice, and over the 8 years and 3 months we hold for XLM it did not happen.
＋What is the worst XLM has fallen?
90.5% in this data, from 25 July 2018 down to 12 March 2020 — 20 months of falling. It took a further 10 months to get back to that peak, on 6 January 2021, so the full round trip was 2 years and 5 months. Bear in mind our XLM series starts in 2018; a deeper fall before that date would not appear here.
＋How often does XLM lose half its value?
2 separate falls of 50% or more appear in this data, and the position spent 96.5% of all days more than 20% below a previous peak. A drop of that size is not an exceptional event for this asset — it is a recurring feature of the record, which is the thing to size a position around.
＋What were XLM's best and worst years?
2020 was the best at +181.8%, and 2022 the worst at -74.3%. The gap between those two is the reason a single average annual return is a poor description of this asset: almost nobody experiences the average, they experience one of the two extremes depending on when they bought.
＋Is 8 years and 3 months of data enough to trust this backtest?
It is among the longer records available here — 8 years and 3 months covering several complete cycles, which is enough for the drawdown and recovery figures to carry real weight. It is still one path that already happened, and the next sequence of prices has no obligation to resemble it.
What to keep in mind for XLM
XLM has a long history and deep liquidity but is still a high-beta asset, and it has spent multi-year stretches far below prior highs.
The base fee is 0.00001 XLM per operation — small enough to be irrelevant to position sizing. Stellar also requires a minimum XLM balance per account and trustline, which is reserved rather than spent.
A backtest is one path that already happened. It shows what this plan produced through the exact sequence of prices XLM went through — not what a similar plan will produce through a sequence nobody has seen yet.