I'm not sure I understand correctly, but from what I got, Stellar is a distributed ledger, but not a currency. There are no coins as such. But the upside is that the consensus is reached without a taxing algorithm.
Everyone can run a node, but the whole system is not itself decentralised, because you need "anchors", which are banks or payment processors, to get your money in and out of the system.
So then, what is the point of the decentralised ledger? GNU Taler seems like a more simple solution.
>>Stellar is a distributed ledger, but not a currency. There are no coins as such.
From the Stellar FAQ[1]: "Lumens are the native asset of the Stellar network.
Native means that lumens are built into the network. Asset is how the network refers to an item of value that is stored on the ledger.
One lumen is a unit of digital currency, like a bitcoin.
While you can’t hold a lumen in your hand, they are essential to the Stellar network—they contribute to the ability to move money around the world and to conduct transactions between different currencies quickly and securely."
Stellar is a distributed ledger that has a native currency to make payments easier.
After reading up on Taler, it sounds like a very similar idea to Stellar, but Stellar removes some of the need for trusted authorities.
From the Taler overview: "The system requires an external auditor, such as a government-appointed financial regulatory body, to frequently verify the exchange's databases and check that its bank balance matches the total value of the remaining coins in circulation."
In Stellar, this service is provided by the ledger and the nodes that validate it.
Anchors are not inherent to the Stellar consensus protocol - that is part of how the Stellar coin works, but the consensus protocol doesn't include that, it is just the mechanism for the various nodes coming to a consensus on the blocks.
Everyone can run a node, but the whole system is not itself decentralised, because you need "anchors", which are banks or payment processors, to get your money in and out of the system.
So then, what is the point of the decentralised ledger? GNU Taler seems like a more simple solution.