Bell upgrade sets November 23 vote: What it means for the Stellar price

Published on 10/21/2026 at 19:18 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS

Protocol 30 targets post-quantum signatures in smart contracts. The Stellar price is 0.17804 USD on October 21, 2026, down 1.04 percent.

Quantum security and network use

On October 20, 2026, Stellar announced Bell and a November 23 validator vote.
Stellar handled 12 million transactions on October 11 at an average fee of 0.00012 USD.
The Stellar price stands at 0.17804 USD as of October 21, 2026, 1.04 percent below the UTC daily close of October 15, 2026.

Stellar, XCCRYPTOXLM0, Illustration mit AI erstellt.

Stellar (XLM) has scheduled a November 23, 2026, validator vote for Bell, a Protocol 30 upgrade focused on smart-contract security and account features. The Stellar price is 0.17804 USD as of October 21, 2026, down 1.04 percent compared with the UTC daily close of October 15, 2026.

Bell sets a November 23 validator vote

TokenPost reported on October 21, 2026, that Stellar's proposed Bell upgrade will face a mainnet validator vote on November 23, 2026, at 17:00 UTC. A testnet vote is scheduled for November 3, 2026, at 17:00 UTC. The proposal would let smart contracts verify post-quantum signatures, meaning signatures designed to withstand future quantum-computing attacks, while also adding W-format contract addresses and ledger close times in milliseconds.

The proposed changes require validator approval, and the network's transaction signatures would continue to use Ed25519. TokenPost also reported that developers and operators using Stellar software development kits need to update them before the votes because older versions may not read Protocol 30 ledgers. XLM remains the native token used to pay network transaction fees.

October 11 activity reached 12 million transactions

Stellar processed 12 million transactions on October 11, 2026, while its average transaction fee fell to 0.00012 USD, according to Coinotag. The report said the figure represented an average of 139.15 transactions per second and that the fee was a seven-day low. It attributed the readings to Chainspect data and said Protocol 28, known as the Adapter upgrade, was already active when the usage surge occurred.

Coinotag said the October 11 figures do not establish whether the upgrade delivered a lasting change in network performance. The report also identified more than 3.54 billion USD in tokenized real-world assets on Stellar, with Franklin Templeton's BENJI product and WisdomTree funds among the named drivers.

Stellar price data shows a 1.04 percent decline

The Stellar price stands at 0.17804 USD as of October 21, 2026, according to Investing.com. That is 1.04 percent below the UTC daily close of October 15, 2026. The daily high is 0.17871 USD and the daily low (UTC day) is 0.17662 USD. Investing.com lists Stellar's market capitalization at 6.27 billion USD, ranking it 17th, and 24-hour volume at 106.68 million USD. Circulating supply is 35.20 billion XLM.