This Is Happening Fast
XLM hasn’t made headlines like this since the 2017 mania, but here we are. Early this morning—July 17, 2024, 09:14 UTC—veteran chart‐watcher Peter Brandt fired off a tweet claiming Stellar Lumens could rip to $7.20 if one gnarly resistance band finally buckles. Markets didn’t wait. Within 30 minutes of the tweet, XLM spiked from $0.14 to $0.167 on Binance, tagging a fresh 13-month high. Order books are still blinking red and green like a Christmas tree. Traders are trying to figure out whether to chase or fade this thing.
First, a Quick Flashback
Stellar last flirted with real euphoria in May 2021, topping out around $0.80. It’s mostly been pain since then—down 88 percent at last winter’s lows. But July has been electric: volume on Upbit +374 percent week-over-week, perpetual funding rates in the green across Bybit, OKX, and BitMEX. And remember 2017? XLM pulled a 100x move in five months. That’s why Brandt’s $7 call, while bonkers on paper, has OGs raising an eyebrow instead of laughing him off.
Here’s What Brandt Actually Said
“If Stellar can clear the 0.0000035 BTC pivot with weekly confirmation, the measured move extends toward 0.00014 BTC. At spot parity that’s roughly $7.20. Big ‘if,’ but the pattern is textbook.” — Peter Brandt, @PeterLBrandt, 09:14 UTC
So he’s mapping the USD target from a BTC pair breakout—that’s classic Brandt. The key level in USD terms is roughly $0.19–$0.22. That’s where sellers have squatted since last summer. Smash that, and he thinks a vertical candle becomes possible. Insane? Maybe. But Brandt’s 2018 “Bitcoin to $3k” call looked nuts too—until it wasn’t.
Now Here’s the Interesting Part
Price is only half the story. Stellar’s devs quietly shipped Protocol 20 last quarter, enabling native smart contracts—finally. Soroban, the Rust-based toolkit, just moved into public beta on the Futurenet test chain. TVL is tiny for now ($48 M on Stellarity per DeFiLlama) but that’s still up 190 percent from March. Meanwhile, MoneyGram’s USDC-on-Stellar ramp keeps growing in Latin America. When utility inches higher while charts flash squeezes, weird things happen. Remember Dogecoin’s 2021 TikTok pump? Utility zero, price moon. With Stellar, we at least have some fundamentals to pin on the wall.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio
If you’re sitting on a bag from 2018, you’re probably thinking, “Can we actually 40-X from here?” Honestly, nobody knows. But there are hard markers worth tracking:
- $0.19–$0.22: Weekly close above puts Brandt’s script in motion.
- 0.0000035 BTC: The line he tweeted. Watch the XLM/BTC chart on TradingView.
- Funding flips +0.15%: Could signal longs overheating—potential trap.
- July 26 FOMC: A surprise macro hawk swoop could slam risk assets across the board.
And hey, even if this melts back to $0.10, was it really crazy to take a small swing here? Stellar’s FDV at $0.17 is roughly $4.7 B. For comparison, Shiba Inu’s is $12 B with arguably less substance. Food for thought.
But Wait—Isn’t $7 Nuts?
Absolutely. That’s a 4,000 percent move. You’d need near-mania liquidity, ETF hype, or an Elon tweet (maybe all three). Brandt himself said “big ‘if’.” Still, technical traders eat these setups for breakfast. Measured moves from cup-with-handle patterns, fib extensions, Elliott Wave counts—they don’t care about your disbelief. They care if the candles print. The current weekly RSI just pierced 70 for the first time since April 2021, which historically kicks off multi-week trends on XLM.
Questions No One Can Answer Yet
• Will Coinbase relaunch XLM staking after the SEC dust settles?
• Can Soroban land a real DeFi killer app before Solana or Base grab all user mindshare?
• Does MoneyGram’s retail flow ramp enough to create sustained buying pressure?
If two of those three swing in Stellar’s favor while BTC holds $60 k, Brandt’s moonshot doesn’t look quite as comic-bookish.
What I’m Personally Watching
I’ve got 0.18 loaded as an alert on the XLM/USDT four-hour. If we blow through that with a volume spike above $1.2 B-daily, I’m punching a ticket—even if only for the weekend. And if we drift sideways into Monday, no harm done; the breakout can wait. Just don’t get married to any single target. Crypto chops up dreamers as fast as it mints legends.
Bottom Line—Don’t Sleep on the Lumens
Stellar hasn’t had this much momentum in years, and Peter Brandt just poured gasoline on the spark. Whether we see $0.25 or $7, the next few candles will be loud. Strap in, set your stops, and maybe keep a glass of water handy—this chart’s heating up faster than my GPU in a summer mining rig.
Disclosure: The author holds a starter bag of XLM and might add (or dump) at any time. None of this is financial advice—just one degenerate’s play-by-play.
