In November 2019, the Stellar Development Foundation (@StellarOrg) executed one of the largest token burns in crypto history, permanently removing more than half of all $XLM from circulation
In November 2019, the Stellar Development Foundation (@StellarOrg) executed one of the largest token burns in crypto history, permanently removing more than half of all $XLM from circulation in a single action.
The foundation sent roughly 55 billion XLM to a locked address that cannot be accessed by anyone, a process commonly described as burning. The move cut total supply from approximately 105 billion to 50 billion XLM. CEO Denelle Dixon announced the decision publicly at the Stellar Meridian conference, framing it as a practical exercise rather than a symbolic one.
Of the 55 billion removed, around 50 billion had been allocated to free airdrop and partner giveaway programs that the foundation decided to shut down, saying those programs had stopped delivering meaningful results. The remaining 5 billion came from the foundation's own operating budget, which was trimmed to 12 billion XLM as a result.
According to reporting from CoinDesk at the time, Dixon said the foundation began not by asking how much to burn, but by asking how much it actually needed, then calibrated supply to that figure over a projected 10-year horizon.
The burn did not happen in isolation. Weeks earlier, in October 2019, the Stellar network's validators approved Protocol 12, an upgrade that included CAP-0026, which disabled the protocol's built-in inflation mechanism. Before the upgrade, XLM supply grew by 1% per year, with those newly created tokens distributed to network participants on a weekly basis. Validators voted to end that model, and since the upgrade took effect on October 28, 2019, no new XLM has been created.
The SDF's own proposal, published on stellar.org, noted that the inflation mechanism had stopped serving its original purpose: rather than funding ecosystem projects, most holders simply pooled together to collect payouts for themselves, creating unnecessary load on the network's validators.
After both changes, the foundation retained just under 30 billion XLM, close to 60% of the remaining supply, earmarked for development grants, ecosystem support, and investment. Of that, 12 billion was allocated to a direct development fund, with tranches escrowed and released over time.
Together, the burn and the inflation shutdown established a fixed-supply model for $XLM that remains in place today.
Sources:CoinDesk: Stellar's Foundation Just Destroyed Half the Supply of Its Lumens CryptocurrencyStellar Development Foundation: Our Proposal to Disable InflationCryptoSlate: Stellar Ends Inflation of XLM with Latest Protocol Upgrade
