Lumens, also known as Stellar or Stellar Lumens, is a token built into the Stellar network. It was launched in mid 2014 with 100 billion stellars, as it was called those days. In 2015, with the launch of upgraded network, the name of token changed to lumens for better distinction between the Stellar network and the token itself. And in a little time it became one of the world´s top ten cryptocurrencies!
The transactions have very low fees, each one about 100 stroops (=0.00001 lumens), and it is ideal for micropayments since its average process time is between 2 and 5 seconds. However, the nominal fee, well known as a base fee, can be increased by system when suspects the malicious intent that could lead to bring down the network.
Another important thing to know about Lumens is that it requires minimum account balance. Currently it is set to 0,5 XLM what is known as the base reserve.
One of the Lumens advantages in comparision with another tokens is the facility to trade between two different currencies always when there is a liquid market between involved currencies and lumens.
It is likely that this crypto reminds you of some other. Yes, we are talking about Ripple since in some aspects they have great similarities but while XRP has been oriented towards financial institutions because of its structure, Stellar is more people-oriented. This does not mean that technology is not interesting for many institutions.
If you want to know in which Wallet store your XLM we recommend you take a look at this article about the most recognized Wallets of this cryptocurrency.
To track any Wallet or transaction made with XLM you just have to access this website. It´s an explorer that gives you the available information of the transactions.