Chapter 3: A User Guide to Stellar
Exploring the Stellar Blockchain
You can view the transactions and balance of any Stellar account using a Blockchain explorer. One popular option is stellarchain.io. The home page shows the latest transactions and other statistics. To view the account specific details, you can search by the account public key, also know as the account address. Here is an example for the address GCFXHS4GXL6BVUCXBWXGTITROWLVYXQKQLF4YH5O5JT3YZXCYPAFBJZB. You can see the account balance and the list of transactions. While there are numerous transaction types, Payment is the most obvious one that shows a transfer from one address to another.
Stellar Accounts
There are many ways to create and manage a Stellar account. Here is a brief summary.
Stellar Account Viewer
The Stellar Foundation maintains a simple web interface called Stellar Account Viewer. It allows you to do common operations like creating an account and Lumen transfers. Creating an account generates a secret key. Keep this a secret since this is how you get access to your account and authorize transactions. Also note that when you create an account this way, your account is inactive until you get someone to transfer a minimum of 1 Lumen to your account.
Wallets
Wallets are apps that allow you to create Stellar accounts, check balance and transfer Lumens. Wallets can be applications for Desktop or Mobile, web sites or browser extensions. The Stellar team maintains a list of known wallets categorized by their type.
Exchanges
Exchanges provide a way to buy and sell Lumens. They typically sport a trading interface and allow you transfer between Lumens and physical currencies (called fiat currencies). They also allow you to place orders to trade Lumens against other crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can find a list of actively traded Stellar markets on coinmarketcap.com.
Trading
While Stellar Lumens is primarily intended to be used as a payment currency, there is plenty of interest in speculating on the future value of Lumens. Many websites like onchainfx.com provide a summary view of real time trading statistics. Like mentioned above, Exchanges provide a trader friendly interface inspired by traditional security trading applications. There you will find plenty of additional trading metrics.