Stellar's XLM Rises on Protocol 28 Upgrade and Bullish Market Conditions

Stellar's XLM has surged by approximately 3.3% over the past 26 hours, driven primarily by the activation of Protocol 28 upgrade and bullish market conditions.

The Protocol 28 upgrade, which was activated on September 17, introduced new consensus tooling and contract-migration features, achieving a record throughput of 211 transactions per second over 100 blocks. XLM rose around 4% to roughly $0.186 during this time, although it's unclear whether the upgrade directly caused the price increase.

The upgrade is also tied to Stellar's role in financial infrastructure, supporting about $3.3 billion in tokenized real-world assets and nearly $884 million in stablecoins. This data helps justify why traders might re-rate XLM on the back of an upgrade positioned as necessary for higher future load.