Stellar XLM Surpasses Bitcoin Cash as Bulls Drive 13% Rally
Stellar (XLM)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
u.today reports that Stellar (XLM) has overtaken Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in market capitalization rankings following a sustained buying wave. XLM climbed more than 13% in the last 24 hours, extending a rally that began after a daily golden cross appeared over the weekend. This momentum moved Stellar to the 16th spot with a $7.55 billion valuation, pushing BCH down to 18th place at $6.61 billion.
The asset rose from a low of $0.172 on September 16, coinciding with the Mainnet launch of the Adapter (Protocol 28) upgrade. This upgrade introduced faster consensus, atomic upgrades for contract fleets, and a safer method for migrating contract data. Ledger close times improved to approximately 5 seconds, down from 5.7 seconds, while throughput increased by 10–15%.
A peak of 216.1 TPS was recorded across 100 consecutive blocks, with some contract calls requiring up to 2x fewer instructions. Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash had previously surged on news that CME Group would launch BCH futures on October 19. Those futures will include standard 250 BCH contracts and Micro contracts of 25 BCH. At the time of writing, BCH had retreated 4.53% to $331 after hitting a high of $365 on September 23.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for XLM, measured when this story was written up on 25 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio spot data shows XLM trading at $0.2177 with a 1-hour buy ratio of 52.2% and a 4-hour buy ratio of 54.9%, indicating that recent buying pressure is intensifying compared to the 24-hour average of 49.7%. The volume delta reflects this shift, showing a positive +$104,697 in the last hour and +$1,316,788 over four hours, contrasting with a negative -$190,088 over the full day. This suggests that while earlier selling dragged the daily total down, aggressive accumulation has resumed in the short term. The Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) closed at +$2,478,337 over 24 hours, confirming that net buying has outweighed selling for 16 of the last 24 hours. Spot volume reached $28,982,144 with 176,378 trades, demonstrating active participation in this renewed upward move.
The latest daily buy ratio of 49.1% sits at the 31st percentile of the last 323 days, against a median of 50.7% - ordinary for this coin.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for XLM, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, XLM saw a 7-day average buy ratio of 50.3%, with the latest day registering 0.6 points lower than that average. Volume was measured at 0.99x the weekly average, indicating trading activity remained near typical levels despite the price surge. Net buying occurred on 4 out of 7 days, contributing to an 8-day price change of +18.7%. The total volume delta for the period was +$809,158, showing that the recent hourly surge is part of a broader, albeit intermittent, accumulation trend rather than an isolated spike.