Nimiq is a non-profit and open-source project founded by some, developed by many, and owned by none. Instead, it is a decentralized payment system, built on it’s own blockchain.
Nimiq is a blockchain ecosystem for payments, it is designed to make cryptocurrencies easy to use for everyone without compromising decentralization.
Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin was not only a technological idea but also laid the foundation for a disruptive means of transacting value not seen before in the history of humankind.
In the past, it was hard to imagine that payments are able to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
As you can see, this brilliant concept has so far fostered a more grand ecosystem with a broad range of ideas and technical solutions.
Platforms that “just work” for non-crypto people are those that do not look like a crypto platform and don’t require any technical knowledge to understand and use while most techie-friendly, non-UX-focused platforms won’t work for mass adoption but techies.
As such, non-crypto users will have difficulties understanding and getting along with the most modern technology like cryptocurrency.
In light of these facts, Nimiq seeks to research, implement, and combine cutting-edge technology to offer a crypto Ecosystem, especially for a non-crypto audience.
What Is Nimiq Creating?
To date, centralized services like centralized crypto exchanges or payment providers play a key role in the implementation and adoption of cryptocurrencies.
It can be explained easily, as they employ the same patterns we became familiar with by using online banking making them seem to be convenient and easy to use and appealing to users. This familiarity seems to make users feel safe.
However, this convenience and feeling of safety come with a serious trade-off which is giving up the ownership of your keys to a third party, violating what is considered to be the most special of cryptocurrencies.
In order to achieve the goal of crypto mass adoption, Nimiq develops innovative easy-to-use tech that helps humanity transition into the next generation of finance.
The platform is designed to be a sustainable monetary system without intermediaries, where people are always in full control of their own money, can use it globally, and profit from it to achieve financial freedom.
Nimiq is building a self-custodial, non-discriminatory, easily usable, secure, cheap, eco-friendly, and collaborative decentral financial ecosystem for everyone including features like a digital currency, fast payments and cheap remittances.
Also, its native token NIM is independent money that is free and easy to use for everyone, open for everyone to participate and contribute.
Nimiq Key Features
With the aspiration to create the most accessible and easy-to-use blockchain payment system, not only does it aim to improve usability in the crypto sector, but Nimiq also provides a user experience that currently exceeds the fintech industry standards by using the advantages of being browser-centric.
The blockchain ecosystem offers free-of-charge, reliable crypto solutions that allow you to join the crypto revolution. Here are what you are going to enjoy when jumping into its ecosystem:
NIM
Designed with mass adoption in mind so NIM is the easiest crypto to use. You can swap for BTC, and manage and stake directly with no software download, no installation, no plugin, and no personal data required. Just open a website and it works. Also, you can pay with NIM on traditional Ingenico terminals powered by Salamantex.
Storage
Safe and true to the spirit of crypto: 100% non-custodial. “Not your keys not your coins“.
Proof-of-Stake
Nimiq is moving to PoS. Nimiq has created Albatross, a new, super-fast Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm that will launch together with an upgrade of the Nimiq Blockchain. This also can overcome the environmental burden caused by the electricity consumption of PoW.
Performance and Scalability
Expectations are about 1000 TPS and finality in one second.
Nimiq’s “super-halving”
The transition to Proof-of-Stake will reduce the emission rate which is currently around 2418 NIM per block. You can check the latest metrics here.
Staking
When staking a minimum of 10000 NIM, you can become a validator and enjoy a reward of up to 6% per year ( this depends on many different factors though ).
Delegated Staking from the Nimiq Wallet will also be supported for those who want to get rewards directly in their browsers, without running their own validator.
Modern Apps
To make crypto for everyone, Nimiq’s ecosystem apps are built for people without crypto or tech knowledge. The platform avoids crypto lingo and puts extra effort into the design and experience of the Nimiq apps to create a decentralized experience with the convenience of modern apps.
P2P Connections
The Nimiq Wallet connects directly to the blockchain and enables everyone to broadcast and receive transactions from the network themselves without depending on full nodes in the network as it’s done in Bitcoin and others.
What Makes Nimiq Special?
Nimiq is a crowdfunding project that raised 60K ETH in 2017, which is held and managed by the Nimiq Foundation and used to fund the development of Nimiq’s blockchain and ecosystem.
Its business model is not in the traditional sense. The foundation has been careful with spending and focuses on building instead of hyping.
This transparency is very much appreciated by the community and seems to be somewhat unique in the crypto space.
The parameters determining the Nimiq Mainnet token amount and creation was designed for a total final supply of 21 Billion NIM 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 Foundation (10 year vesting)
• 2% Good Cause Partnerships and Sponsorships (10 year vesting)
• 1.5% Early Contributors (6 month vesting)
• 1% Creators (3 year vesting)
The team behind the project uncompromised on decentralization and censorship resistance. Therefore, the team never takes centralized shortcuts and turns down opportunities that conflict with this idealism.
It is designed to focus on ease of use even for non-technical users and aims for the quickest, least complicated, and most accessible solution in all categories of a payment system.
The Nimiq wallet might be the quickest to set up and easiest-to-use self-custodial wallet (for NIM and BTC).
The underlying OASIS protocol offers unique value in itself. It brings HTLCs to any digital asset and thus could also act as a super secure fiat-fiat bridge, e.g. for remittances.
So, Nimiq, in a way, is the most decentralized layer one network as it enables even non-techies to be peers on the network, while Miners are still part of the Nimiq blockchain to secure and verify the network and are crucial for the consensus.
Final Word
In the midst that crypto payment systems are struggling to bridge the gap between traditional banking and cryptocurrency ecosystems, it can’t be denied that projects like Nimiq are delivering usability and value incentives for consumers to switch from their familiar ways of payment.
