Stellar price in focus as Bell testnet upgrade moves toward mainnet vote
Published on 11/06/2026 at 13:09 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWSBell upgrade shapes Stellar outlook
- Testnet validators approved Stellar's Bell, Protocol 30 upgrade on November 3, with the mainnet vote scheduled for November 23.
- Bell adds muxed contract addresses, ML-DSA signature verification for smart contracts and millisecond ledger timing.
- Investing.com displayed XLM/USD at USD 0.15394 on November 6, with a market capitalization of USD 5.45 billion.
Stellar price remains tied to network development rather than a completed mainnet upgrade. On November 6, Investing.com displayed XLM/USD at USD 0.15394. The same page showed a 24-hour volume of USD 192.36 million, a market capitalization of USD 5.45 billion and a rank of 17. These are displayed market data from the page read for this report, not a verified UTC day-close comparison.
The immediate protocol catalyst is Bell, or Protocol 30. According to the Coinranking report, validators approved the testnet upgrade on November 3 at 17:00 UTC, and Bell is now live on testnet. The mainnet vote remains scheduled for November 23 at 17:00 UTC. The upgrade is not live on mainnet unless that vote passes.
What Bell changes for Stellar
The Stellar Development Foundation says Bell combines three proposed changes. CAP-84 introduces muxed contract addresses, allowing a smart contract to distinguish customers through an identifier while using one contract address. CAP-87 enables ML-DSA post-quantum signature verification inside smart contracts. CAP-88 adds millisecond ledger timing, removing a technical barrier to future efforts to shorten ledger close times.
The changes are primarily infrastructure features, not an immediate change to XLM's token economics. They do, however, create preparation work for wallets, exchanges, custodians, indexers and other applications. Stellar says operators must update relevant SDKs and, where necessary, support the new W address format and updated ledger data definitions. The foundation also states that Bell does not itself make the network faster than its current ledger timing.
Access expands through MetaMask
A second development is wallet distribution. In a press release dated October 29, Stellar said MetaMask had made the network a default option in its mobile app and browser extension. Existing MetaMask accounts receive a Stellar address, while users can manage XLM, trustline assets and Soroban tokens and swap between supported networks.
For investors, the combination of a visible upgrade milestone and broader wallet access improves the network's development narrative, but neither event guarantees higher demand for XLM. The key near-term checkpoint is the November 23 mainnet vote, while the displayed Stellar price remains exposed to the broader volatility of digital-asset markets.
Further updates are collected on the Stellar topic page.
