Stellar price (XLM/USD) rises to six-week high ahead of ICO launch

The Stellar price (XLM/USD) has topped the $0.35 level for the first time in more than six weeks thanks to a strong performance in the past 24 hours.

The eight-largest cryptocurrency has outpaced most of major digital coins on the market, with the only exception being Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD), whose price has seen massive gains over the 24-hour period. Stellar surged 17% yesterday to close the session at $0.351. This was the digital currency’ first close above the $0.35 mark in more than a month.

The cryptocurrency continued its advance in the early hours of today’s trading, with its price hitting $0.377, which was its highest level since March 5. The Stellar price has pulled back to lower levels in more recent trading and is currently hovering around $0.36.

Stellar has posted impressive gains in the past few sessions, nearly doubling its price over the past week. Some observers have suggested that this could be due to excitement over the initial coin offering (ICO) of Canadian cannabis company Nezly, which is scheduled to launch tomorrow.

Stellar is aiming to challenge Ethereum’s position as the leading platform for ICOs, so the upcoming token sale may have boosted investors’ interest in the XLM coin.

Recent market data shows that Stellar has seen significant improvement in terms of trading volume. Some $189 million worth of XML tokens have exchanged hands in the past 24 hours. This is significantly more than the $158 million in trading volume generated during the Wednesday session.

The Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance accounts for just over 30% of Stellar’s 24-hour volume, while South Korea’s Upbit platform captures 22%.

In today’s trading, the Stellar price stood at $0.361, as of 16:07 BST. The digital coin has gained 6.7% in the past 24 hours, according to data from cryptocurrency tracker Coinmarketcap.