Stellar (XLM)
Stellar (XLM) on Ledger Enterprise: the minimum balance, memos, the four memo types, and when you must include one.
How Stellar differs
Stellar uses a minimum balance model. An Account cannot hold a zero balance. The network locks a multiple of the base reserve in every Account, and locks one more multiple for each entry the Account holds.
The locked amount is not a fee and it is not spendable. It reduces the available balance for as long as the Account exists.
Payments also carry an optional memo, which identifies the payee inside an address that many customers share.
For the protocol itself, see the Stellar developer documentation.
Token coverage
Ledger Enterprise supports XLM only on Stellar. Issued assets and trust lines are not supported.
Minimum balance
The network sets the base reserve, not Ledger Enterprise. It can change by protocol vote.
The minimum balance is (2 + number of entries) x base reserve, where the base reserve is 0.5 XLM. A plain Account therefore locks 1 XLM.
Note: The base reserve was checked against the Stellar documentation on lumens on 7 October 2026. It can change by protocol vote.
Because assets and trust lines are not supported here, an Account normally holds no entries beyond the minimum.
Ledger Enterprise reserves a flat 1 XLM on every Stellar Account. This amount does not count entries. It matches the network minimum for an Account that holds no entries. The product subtracts it from the available balance. It also refuses a transaction that would leave less than 1 XLM in the Account.
Memos
A memo carries extra information with a Stellar payment. Exchanges and custodians use it to identify who a payment is for, inside an address that many customers share.
The memo is optional in the transaction form. Choose a memo type first, then enter the value.
Text
Up to 28 bytes of text
ID
A whole number. The form checks the upper limit
Hash
A transaction ID
Return
A transaction ID, used to return a payment to its sender
Text and ID are the ones recipients normally ask for. Use the type your recipient specifies, not the one that looks closest.
Warning: If your recipient asks for a memo, you must include it, with the right type. A payment that arrives without the memo reaches the right address but cannot be matched to your Account. Recovering it means contacting the recipient's support team.
Take the memo and its type from the recipient at the same time as the address.
Note: 28 bytes is not the same as 28 characters. Accented and non-Latin characters use more than one byte each. If a text memo is rejected as too long, this is usually why.
Memos and governance
Rules and Whitelists check the recipient address and the amount of a Stellar payment. They do not check the memo.
A Whitelist entry has no memo field. A whitelisted Stellar address accepts a payment with any memo, or with no memo.
No Rule condition applies to the memo.
Approvers see the memo in the Request details, under Stellar memo, with its type.
Important: A Whitelist does not protect the memo. A payment with a wrong memo, or with no memo, matches the same Rules as a payment with the correct memo.
Ripple works differently: a Whitelist entry for XRP can lock the destination tag. See Ripple.
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