Crypto for Everyone
What is it?
Nimiq is a low-barrier payments protocol that makes mining and payments as simple as using a browser. It will launch with atomic swaps and will soon have full lightning network capability.
Why Care? Mainstream Adoption.
Global sentiment for crypto is shifting. Governments are beginning to take blockchain and cryptocurrencies seriously. In the US senate hearing on crypto, comparisons were drawn between the disruptive potential of blockchain to that of the early internet. Overall, their verdict was one of pragmatic enthusiasm. From the heads of the CTFC and SEC leaders to US senators, regulators urged fostering blockchain innovation over rash disruption. Such positive sentiments were confirmed in the US Joint Economic Report of 2018.
For the world’s most influential government to be so supportive of blockchain combined with the rapid growth in public interest, should indicate crypto is headed towards mass adoption.
The Newbie Invasion
With mass adoption, billions of newcomers will flood into crypto. Thrust into a world of unfamiliar concepts, many will struggle. Toiling to explain blockchain concepts to friends and family? We’ve all had that experience. Sure, the computer savvy may have no issues, but what about those who were either incapable of grasping the basic ideas or simply unwilling to learn?
Now toss the countless newbies to come and watch in agony as they suffer before the rigours of crypto. Securely storing funds, managing gas fees, using exchanges, mining? Forget it. Faced with unfamiliar challenges, many will simply turn away from crypto — as wasted potential. That is, unless they are given something easy, something so simple and intuitive that even the most technically challenged could understand.
The Gateway Crypto
For the billions to come, Nimiq can be their gateway to cryptocurrency. It has virtually no learning curve. Requiring only a browser and a few seconds to sync with the blockchain, Nimiq is an introduction to crypto that teaches new adopters step-by-step how to use payments, mine and conduct exchanges. Nimiq’s interface is minimalist, efficient and aesthetically designed — a result of its German engineering.
Through just a browser, users have instant access to fast and lightweight transactions. Even mining, which usually involves hours of fine-tuning custom hardware, is made as simple as running a browser.
Coded with Javascript, the protocol can be worked into nearly every website to unlock a more democratic mode of monetization. Easy to implement, the Nimiq protocol allows sites to choose low impact mining over intrusive ads -which creates a more seamless browsing for users. By lending only brief fractions of their CPU power, users could support the sites they love by choosing to mine Nimiq — a process that takes no effort, as mining occurs in the background.
With Nimiq, an ASIC resistant algorithm will ensure that the original, decentralized spirit of mining lives on. The PoW algorithm is memory bound, meaning fast memory and CPU cache are the primary variables for performance. So while mining with GPUs/ASICs is possible, they are vastly out-performed by CPUs. With CPU-centric mining, there is no tolerance for BS Chinese-whale ASICS, and no toiling over custom-tuned rigs. Nimiq will drastically level the playing field for miners and lower the learning curve of mining for newbies.
It’s so easy even Grandma can do it. Simply visit her house under the pretense of missing her. Distract her by requesting milk and cookies. While she’s gone, use the few seconds it takes to open her browser, sync the lightning-fast wallet and run the client. Just like that she’s mining Nimiq!
Features:
- Ultra-fast, lightweight transactions: 1 MB/1 minute blocks
- ASIC resistant, stops the wealthy from dominating mining
- CPU mining — which vastly outperforms ASICs and GPUs, in the spirit of true decentralization
- Javascript coding means universal implementation, on nearly every website
- Uses the same consensus method deployed in Cardano
- Atomic Swaps/Off-chain transactions
- P2P exchange to come
Transaction Times & Blocks
Using AccountsTree, a concept inspired by Ethereum’s Merkle-Patricia-Tree, synchronization only requires a few kilobytes for users to participate — as compared to the +100GB of Bitcoin which could take days. Hashed Timelock Contracts enable Nimiq to use off-chain transactions which are as secure as on-chain transactions, to create payment channels — a concept used by the Lightning Network for Bitcoin. This “Lightning” capability (to be later fully implemented) combined with a block size of 1MB and block-time of only 1 minute will enable ultra fast, lightweight transactions tailored perfectly for the attention span of new crypto users.
Asic Resistance and Mining
Nimiq will use the Argon2d algorithm to enforce ASIC resistant mining. Argon2d was developed by the renowned cryptography team (Alex Biryukov, Daniel Dinu, and Dmitry Khovratovich from the University of Luxembourg) who developed equihash, as used in Zcash.
While browser mining will offer the lowest barrier experience, Nimiq notes NodeJS servers will form the backbone of the network. The performance increase from running servers will not be significant, such that running off a server would provide an unfair advantage. As with mining in any crypto, those capable of affording the most expensive hardware will reign at the top of the competition. With Nimiq’s ASIC resistance, the advantages of owning expensive equipment are mitigated as differences in CPU performance are not as divisive as when compared with GPUs and ASICs.
A Nimiq for Every Man, Woman and Website
95% of sites are written in Javascript. As Nimiq is coded in Javascript, it can be implemented on nearly every single website. This astronomically expands potential use cases of Nimiq and opportunities to reach the masses. Not a fan of Google AdSense spying on you? Not a fan of being reminded to restock on ball gags and cream? Support websites that have a more democratic system of monetization, that give users choice to mine Nimiq in exchange for content instead of being smothered with ads. With browser mining, Nimiq allows users to support the sites they love with no extra effort — at the cost of just a fraction of CPU power.
Nimiq is an open source protocol, so anyone can develop use cases. WordPress is used in about 60% of all sites. A plug-in has already been created by the community, allowing ready implementation. With talks of a Shopify and Woocommerce support in the works, the range of potential use cases is limited only by the bounds of human imagination.
Consensus Method
Nimiq utilizes the same consensus method as applied in Cardano, NIPoPoW — Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work. This is discreetly mentioned in the Nimiq developer reference. That they have not pushed this for marketing purposes shows the project’s commitment to development over hype.
Atomic Swaps (From Payments to Smart Contracts)
Hashed Timelock Contracts will also enable atomic swaps, allowing Nimiq users access to an unlimited array of smart contract functionality via cross-chains swaps with Ethereum.
For newbies, Nimiq mining might be the source of their first ever crypto. Not willing to bear the hassle of custom rigs, or the intense competition in over-saturated mining markets? Simply opt to mine Nimiq. Use your smartphone, your Smart TV, your desktop, your laptop, use anything with a browser! Bot-net the public library — I mean politely ask to “service” their computers. Mine and use Nimiq for what it is perfected to do, fast and lightweight transactions. After mastering payments, users can move on to cross-chain transactions for access to further functionalities.
With atomic swaps, users can instantly convert from liquid and easy-to-mine Nimiq for any ERC20 token — which provide access to an uncapped array of smart contract utilities. Eager to trade in rare and exotic digital cats? Atomic swaps allow users to quickly convert their Nimiq for the Ether to participate in the CryptoKitties Revolution.
P2P exchanges
Nimiq has the vision to create a decentralized exchange, where users can conduct these atomic swaps. Centralized exchanges entail the risk of trusting a third-party to conduct trades. With decentralized exchanges, users need not trust a third party, as trades occur directly between the buyer and seller. Following a low-barrier philosophy, Nimiq’s P2P exchange would also allow newbies to easily conduct cross-crypto transactions.
Team
Stick a bunch of German PhDs in Central America and you’ll either get Blofield’s new secret weapon or coding and design brilliance realized. While both results would be Nummer Eins, I’d wager on the later with Nimiq.
The team consists of a group of talented coders from Germany, who for Nimiq have developed exceptionally written code.
Nimiq may be one of the most transparent blockchain projects. They release a weekly vlog with a showcase of updates, new features and interviews with the developers. As of today, Nimiq is ranked #19 in Github commits among all crypto projects — which should indicate just how crazy active and industrious these Menschen are.
Hype? You’re Still Early
Shocking is how little attention Nimiq has received. This is likely due to a lack of any concerted marketing as the team has sternly emphasized development over hype. Such a sentiment is extremely rare in a space riddled with projects more interested in swindling millions, over making an impact on the world. In my experience, such integrity is something found only with the most special of projects.
An Analogy: Loopring
Nimiq’s emphasis of tech over hype reminds me much of the Loopring project during 2017. With a solid team, putting their heads down and grinding away on a great concept, Loopring wasted no energy on premature marketing. For this, the project steadily built recognition and was rewarded spectacularly in market growth as awareness finally reached a critical mass. For me, the Nimiq project absolutely embodies the same spirit, ambition and optimism as Loopring. For this, I feel very strongly that Nimiq will the follow the same path.
Mainnet — Only The Beginning
- An MVP tested for nearly a year
- Super simple, low barrier browsing experience
- Mining so easy your Oma could do, that is fair and in the O.G spirit of decentralization
- Implementation on practically any website
- A transparent log of development
- A near-fully developed vision ready to launch.
How many ICOs could possibly claim the same qualities of Nimiq? With nearly a year of testnet and a mainnet ready to launch, Nimiq is in many ways like a Super Saiyan, warrior race just poised to spirit bomb the market’s ass. It is set to launch very soon, near the beginning of Q2. The Luna testnet has been live since last summer, on which users have been free to test the wallet and payments functionality, and mining.
The team has been grinding away for months, debugging the system and building out the final features. Full functionality is near completion. The focus now is on hardening the blockchain/protocol. For this, the team has issued a 200k public bounty program. This stake shows Nimiq’s commitment to a product that not only works, but is completely safe for its users. A full visual overhaul and re-brand is also near completion, a final form set to coincide with the mainnet launch.
Converting Tokens: NET to NIM
The Nimiq ICO distributed ERC20 placeholder tokens of NET to fund development of the testnet. Projects like ICON have conducted similar procedures (ERC20 placeholders) to fund early progress. The conversion of tokens for the mainnet launch is currently underway. Over the next few days, users will be able to send in their NET in exchange for NIM with the genesis block. Users should take action as soon as possible, as the opportunity for automatic activation is due to close very soon. Following that, users will be forced to go through manual activation — forcing the Nimiq team to undergo the time-consuming process of manually verifying each conversion.
Conversion Rate:
1 NET = 100 NIM
Initial Supply:
10 500 000 NET = 1 050 000 000 NIM
Increasing the decimals is intended to increase usability (particularly for newbs), as it is more intuitive to send 1.23 NIM instead of .00123 NIM. Magnifying the token supply also increases the liquidity of tokens, as smaller proportions of NIM can be traded.
Identicons
Nimiq expands on Identicons to create fun visual representations of payment identity. These cutesy avatars, that even mom will love, allows users to quickly verify their own address, for receiving payments; or verify an address to which one is sending. With Indenticons, Nimiq even further its mass appeal with a friendly and playful aesthetic.
Springtime for Nimiq and Germany
Deutschland wird Kryptowährungsinnovationen unterstützen. It seems Germany is becoming a country that will support crypto innovation. Their Federal Ministry of Finance recently announced, that so long as they are used for payments, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be exempt from sales tax.
As a creation of German engineering, regulatory easing opens up massive opportunities for Nimiq. As the ultimate low-barrier cryptocurrency, Nimiq has potential to become a mainstream payments solution in not only die Mutterland, but globally.
The tides of Nimiq are rising.
The question is, will you NIM-Wits be ready? Make sure activate your NET for NIM ASAP! The window for automatic conversion is set to close very soon!
