Sphere is a smart contract platform and peer-to-peer payment network. The network has a hybrid PoW and PoS consensus mechanism and is powered by the native SPHR token, which can be swapped for an ERC20 token over the Ubiq smart contract platform.

Stellar is a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money, in any pair of currencies, directly on the internet. Stellar enables users to transfer money on their network directly, without banks, and without fees. It was originally created by Jed McCaleb, the founder of Mt. Gox and co-founder of Ripple.
Stellar has its own native coin called Lumens (XLM). All users must hold a minimum of 20 Lumens in order to ensure their authenticity and to maintain a wider distribution and free flow. Users must spend 0.00001 XLM in order to transfer fiat currencies. This provides the network with more liquidity for less popular currency pairs. Lumens are an inflationary currency with a fixed increase rate of 1% per year.
The network uses the Stellar Lumens Consensus Protocol (SCP). Unlike PoW or PoS consensus mechanisms, SCP relies on a Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA), in which specific groups of nodes are chosen to arrive at transaction agreement. This provides the Stellar network with more decentralized control.
Lightyear.io, a for-profit entity of Stellar, was launched in 2017 as the commercial arm of the company.