Nimiq Network Contribution Terms

Mainnet Distribution, Creator Vesting, Simple Rates

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Nimiq

5 min readJun 16, 2017

Two days ago we announced the Nimiq Network crowd contribution. As promised, here are the details. If you are not yet familiar with Nimiq, try out and connect to our Betanet and meet the Team.

Introduction

The difference between the Nimiq Network and most other crowd contributions is that Nimiq is not an application on top of Ethereum, but a third-generation Blockchain and Ecosystem native to the Web. Consequently we model our crowd contribution after Ethereum’s initial crowdsale and issue an Exchange Token. Those Nimiq Exchange Tokens (NET) will be convertible into Nimiq (NIM) — the currency of the Nimiq Blockchain — at launch of the Mainnet planned for December 2017.

The sale of NET will be facilitated through contributions in Ether (ETH) to a smart contract address that we will announce with its deployment to the Ethereum Mainnet. We plan to accept other Token contributions by using ShapeShift.

Nimiq Supply Distribution

To understand the terms of the token sale we need to explain the total supply structure of the future Nimiq Mainnet. The Nimiq Mainnet will be designed for a total final supply of 21 Million NIM (modeled after Bitcoin), with the following distribution:

88% Miners Reward (issued over ~100 years)
5% Token Sale Contributors (no vesting, ~25% circulating supply yr 1)
2.5% Long-term Endowment Foundation¹ (10 year vesting)
2% Good Cause Partnerships and Sponsorships² (10 year vesting)
1.5% Early Contributors (6 month vesting)
1% Creators (3 year vesting)

NIM circulating supply first two years from Mainnet launch

DISCLAIMER: As stated in the Whitepaper, we might switch from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. In that case the total supply cap of 21 Million could be reduced. In any case this would not reduce the absolute amount of Nimiq held by the Token Sale participants so that it would only work in favor of participants.

Token Sale Summary

The amount of Nimiq Exchange Tokens (NET) for sale is equivalent to 5% of the total future Nimiq (NIM) supply (equal to ~25% of the circulating NIM supply after one year, for further explanation see here).

NET are standard tradable ERC20 tokens.
Replacement rate: 1 NIM = 10 NET.
Tokens created in sale: up to 10'500'000 NET.
The sale is capped at 60’000 ETH.
Two stages:
- First two weeks: 1 ETH = 175 NET
- Last two weeks: 1 ETH = 125 NET
Sale starts on June 28, ~1PM UTC
Montreal 9AM | Berlin 3PM | Moscow 4PM | Beijing 9PM | Sydney 11PM
The token sale will start at a particular block number and we will share this when we deploy the smart contract to the Ethereum mainnet.
The sale closed July 8 [edit].

DISCLAIMER: Due to the volatility of the Ether Market we may make final adjustments to the terms no later than June 24. Our calculations were based on a conservative price range of $200-300/ETH.

Capped for Transparency

The crowdsale is capped at 60'000 ETH for simplicity and security.

Simple Pricing

The rate structure is modeled after Ethereum’s initial coin offering. There are two stages, early contributors of the first stage receive a 28.6% discount:

The first two weeks, 1 ETH buys 175 NET
The last two weeks, 1 ETH buys 125 NET

This incentivizes early contributors while providing time for everyone to take part.

Vesting

There is no vesting for Token Sale Contributors. NIM from NET of Token Sale Contributors have no vesting and will be available for use immediately after the Mainnet launch.

Creators, Early Contributors, the Endowment and the Non-Profit for Good Causes will not receive any NET. They will only receive NIM at launch of the Mainnet that vest as follows:

Token Sale Contributors: no vesting.
Creators: 3 years vesting with 6 months cliff. This means we will mature 16.7% of our NIM every 6 months. By taking this approach we are following the successful example of others in the blockchain space and make sure we are on the conservative end of things.
Early Contributors: 6 months vesting with 3 months cliff. This means they will mature 50% of their tokens at the end of month three, and the rest on month six.
Long-Term Endowment Foundation: 10 year vesting with 6 months cliff.
Non-Profit Organization for Good Causes: 10 year vesting with 6 months cliff.

¹Long-Term Endowment

To fund the long-term development of the protocol, the development of the ecosystem and further innovations on top of the protocol, the Nimiq Foundation will be issued 2.5% of total NIM supply over a period of 10 years after Mainnet launch. This incentivizes a long-term commitment and project philosophy. We are committed to providing the Endowment Foundation with funding from the Token Sale. Specifically funds left over from the development effort of the Mainnet launch and Ecosystem will be available to the Endowment Foundation.

²Good Cause Partnerships

We want Nimiq to serve the planet and the people. For this reason 2% of total NIM supply will be issued over a period of 10 years to a non-profit organization which funds people working on projects with high social or ecological impact. Think of large-scale projects like planting a billion trees, cleaning the oceans from plastic or building a million schools. This organization will be founded before the Mainnet launch. It will be completely independent of the Nimiq project and will govern itself either via a committee or ideally as a decentralized organization on top of Ethereum. Supporting a Good Cause is reduced to simply using Nimiq and requires no donation nor incurs any additional fee or cost.

More Details

We will soon post additional documents such as the Intended Use of Funds with Development Plan.

We are also undergoing security auditing and will publish the Token Sale Smart Contract for peer reviewing soon [Edit: now linked].

Thanks,

Team Nimiq