The Year of NIM
Highlights of 2018
This year has been pretty exciting for Nimiq supporters. As we’re approaching its end we want to wave “2018” bye-bye with a bright note, summarizing all the achievements of Nimiq, and giving our community a few Christmas gifts. If you are a long time supporter that couldn’t sleep the day before Mainnet Launch or a new user that just ordered a Nimiq hoodie for Christmas, this is for you. Happy Holidays and, as always, thank you for your support.
Nimiq Team started the year with upgrading the Testnet in January and identifying the internal milestones required for the eventual launch of the Nimiq Mainnet.
In February NET-to-NIM activation started officially with the announcement of the Activation Tool. With the Activation Tool, the community got the chance to put their hands on a real Nimiq Mainnet app. This app allowed users to create an account, chose an Identicon, backup their private key and prove ownership of NET.
With a clearer vision of the road ahead, Team Nimiq released the Roadmap To Mainnet, outlining all the tasks required to reach the finish line: the launch of Nimiq Mainnet. One of the first tasks was also announced in the same month: Nimiq started working with HackerOne, the world’s leading white-hat hacker platform, to perform a detailed public audit in the form of a Bug Bounty Program.
March was the month when the Nimiq Blockchain in its final form saw the light of day: the Mainnet Release Candidate. The intention was to give enough time for hackers to join the Bug Bounty Program and try to hack the final version of the Nimiq Blockchain before deploying it.
During April there was only one question lingering in the air: When Mainnet? April 14th was the selected date. A large amount of effort went into the security of the — soon to be — Nimiq Mainnet. At the same time, Team Nimiq provided educational resources, an FAQ, and live help on Nimiq’s social media channels. Finally, the day came and Team Nimiq mobilized all resources leading to a successful launch. The next weeks after the launch of Nimiq Mainnet were focused on taking care of the blockchain and monitoring closely its overall functioning.
In May — with the blockchain already running live and well — the emphasis shifted towards improving its usability. The Pool Server was released to help users create and manage their own mining pools. Browser Mining Pools were enabled, and the Nimiq Ledger Nano S App was announced.
June saw a Blockchain Ecosystem starting to mature with the first exchange listing NIM, increasing marketing efforts, upgrades in performance and stability as well as improvements in the Nimiq UI.
By July, as the Nimiq Blockchain was performing well, Team Nimiq was already thinking about the next steps, announcing plans on research and further upgrades.
Nimiq was a very young blockchain, hiccups were to be expected, but only one occurred. That was during the night of August 25, when an incident affected the difficulty of the network making the next block almost impossible to mine. This incident was quickly resolved and a comprehensive technical report was shared with the community. Also in the news, a Nimiq Branded Nano S giveaway started. Spoiler alert: here are the winners.
In September, the swag shop opened for business. Team Nimiq increased efforts in communication and marketing while continuing work on the upgrades announced before. The first communication hackathon took place, exciting the community with the idea of a professional identity revamp. The Transparency Report was published by Team Nimiq and appreciated within and beyond the community, it outlines the different areas where funds have been used so far.
October was a month with a lot of community interaction. Starting with the first community meetup as well as the announcement of the Community Funds. The Nimiq Minimum Unit “Luna” was chosen by the community. A highly anticipated marketing plan was also announced, paired with the brand-new visual identity. And as if that was not enough for one month, a full detailed technical roadmap was made public as well.
There is no doubt, November was the month of the Onboarding Boat. Nimiq Team attended the Web 3 Summit and performed their first marketing stunt. The team also took part in the Malta Blockchain Summit, acquiring valuable contacts for future plans. During this month the team also started working with active community members from around the world to work as local community managers and grow the non-English speaking community, providing news, information and support in their own languages.
And as the year reaches its end in December so does the NET reach its end-of-life. While the NET ends, new partnerships started. AgoraTrade, a decentralized exchange built by a team of experienced Blockchain developers, launched using NIM and Ethereum to provide an easy way for users to trade cryptocurrencies without trusting the exchange itself. TotalCrypto — a cryptocurrencies news outlet interested in adoption — joined our efforts on this topic by creating and publishing an initial proposal for crypto mass adoption which is open for the entire community to contribute to, not only Nimiq’s Community but anyone interested in applying cryptocurrencies to empower people lacking access to independent, corruption-free financial services. During this month, the team worked on a major UX overhaul of the Nimiq Ecosystem to increase simplicity and ease-of-use which will lead to a new website and a new Safe in early 2019. Both focused on new users providing a smooth and fast onboarding but also an educational experience to deliver a clear message of what Nimiq is and how it aims at mass adoption.
In addition Nimiq made early steps towards Nimiq “2.0” by aggregating research results on consensus algorithms for evaluating the state-of-the-art, looking into research partnerships as well as planning research conference attendance. This lays the groundwork for the potential evolution of the protocol with further focus on technical aspects regarding performance and scalability for mass adoption.
As the holidays approached, Nimiq Team delivered some Christmas gifts to the community:
- New ecosystem apps.
- An open-sourced first version of a Nimiq Full Node in Rust.
- And a brand-new Developer Center.
Team Nimiq is motivated and driven by the vision of crypto mass adoption and proud of the accomplishments so far but at the same time even more excited of how much further we can reach together with the Nimiq community in 2019 and onwards. It is this joint effort that made the project reach its current state. We want to thank you for all the shared successes, the questions, suggestions and the ‘when’s’. We’re looking forward to 2019.
Happy New Year!
Team Nimiq
DISCLAIMER: None of the statements must be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation for Nimiq, any cryptocurrency, or investment product. Neither the information, nor any opinion contained herein constitutes a solicitation or offer by the creators or participants to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments or provide any investment advice or service.
