The internet has always been about connecting people and ideas — making the world a little smaller, a little more interconnected. Sure, it has been misused, maladapted, maligned and manipulated, but at its heart the internet has always been about overcoming barriers — barriers to mutual understanding; barriers to organizing people, places and ideas; barriers to efficiency; barriers to a better world for the masses.
In the aftermath of the 2008 US bank bailouts, a novelty appeared in a dimly lit corner of the vast expanse of the internet. Some called it, “the internet of money,” because it carried the promise of allowing users across geographic terrain to exchange value instantly and cheaply. Bitcoin took shape partially to counterbalance the centralized “too big to fail” justifications that spent hard-earned tax dollars to redeem the gross negligence and downright greed of bank executives. Bitcoin was going to upend this harmful “too big to fail” centralization and keep value in the hands of those who earned it.
At least this was its promise. After ten years, it seems the premise of bitcoin has run into the reality of challenging first efforts. Just as Google supplanted Yahoo, Google Chrome supplanted Internet Explorer and Facebook supplanted MySpace, there comes a time when the pioneering technology of a particular space gives way to services with lower costs, quicker speeds and greater utility. Bitcoin can cost more to send than the value of your purchase, take hours to move from one wallet to another, and change in value by more than a percentage point between the time it leaves one wallet and lands in the next. Few people in the cryptocurrency space think Bitcoin will survive as an exchange of value, but its vision of securely connecting people across geographic space without use of an intermediary remains.
In countries like Venezuela currently, Zimbabwe in the past decade, Brazil and Nicaragua in the late 1980s, Germany in the 1920s and many other countries throughout history at various times, currency inflation can become hyperinflation — dropping the value of a currency by multiple percentage points daily. The value of the Venezuelan bolivar dropped 99.9% in very few years, wiping out entire life savings. Employment rates plummet. Imported foods and medicines become unattainable, and human suffering is beyond what most of us can imagine. Currently, the average monthly income in Venezuela is $1.61, or 1 million bolivars — this includes earned salary AND a government food stipend! Finding a means to efficiently store and exchange value is not a question for hobbyists or techno-geeks in Venezuela — it is literally a matter of life and death.
This is where Nano comes into play. Nano is a next generation application of blockchain technology that may well supplant Bitcoin due to its more efficient data structure. When trying to buy a kilogram of cornmeal from a vendor at a local market in Venezuela (or anywhere for that matter), you can’t wait hours for some portion of Bitcoin to post. Neither can you pay double the value you’ve spent on that cornmeal in order to pad the pockets of some Bitcoin miner halfway around the world who cryptographically secures your payment. You absolutely must have secure, feeless, instant value exchange without depending on an intermediary — and that defines the mission and utility of Nano.
Venezuelans have begun using Nano to pay for food instead of the country’s bolivar — using the nano cryptocurrency as a swift means to exchange value that will not plummet between payments. One reddit user, u/Windows7733, posted his fondness for the currency on the r/nanocurrency subreddit after having received 0.5 nano — or more than a month’s income in Venezuela. Understanding the dire need to have a more stable and efficient means to exchange value, and eager to provide some humanitarian assistance, other users of the subreddit (r/nanocurrency) donated hundreds of dollars worth of nano coin. Donations flooded in from all over the world, each arriving nearly instantaneously to the Venezuelan redditor’s wallet. In a single night, u/Windows7733 received 300 months worth of salary in nano donations, and is using the donations to pay it forward. Friends, neighbors, and family are all receiving relief food, purchased using the nano cryptocurrency. Unfortunately there is risk to receiving such generosity. Food purchased by nano may be targeted by jealous thieves or policemen — in dire situations with poor governance these are often the same people.
Nano has been used for other cases — online betting, payment settlements in countries with greater currency stability, donations to e-sports gurus — but improving life for another human being is the best. It is one way to show we are all connected, in a world that is a little smaller than before. This is what the internet was built for — and its one way the new “internet of money” is paving the way forward.
