Nano (NANO)

1. What is Nano (NANO)?

The Nano blockchain offers fee-less and instantaneous transactions. Nano accomplishes this by using a network structure called Block Lattice, under which each account has its own blockchain to keep transactions. Since transactions are fee-less, in order to prevent spam attacks, an account is required to perform some Proof-of-Work tasks to send a transaction. Nano token holders delegate voting weight to elect network validators. The validators do not earn block rewards or transaction fees. Instead, they contribute voluntarily and enjoy the natural incentives provided by a secure and stable network.

• Nano builds a Block Lattice based decentralized asynchronous network which enables instantaneous and fee-less transactions between accounts.
• From October 2015 to October 2017, Nano has distributed 94.75% of tokens using the CAPTCHA faucet to participants worldwide.
• The Nano community has built a collection of wallets, explorers, and browser extentions to enhance the utility of the NANO token.
• Every block in the Nano blockchain contains a small Proof of Work task to discourage spam.

Nano aims to revolutionize the world economy through an instant, fee-less and decentralized network that is open and accessible to everyone.

The lightweight nature of the Nano blockchain allows anyone to easily participate in local and global economies with a low barrier of entry.

Nano strives to provide an intuitive user experience by offering instantaneous and fee-less transactions. With a fully distributed supply, bridging opportunities such as foreign exchange transactions and fast cross-border transfers can be confidently facilitated over a decentralized network.

2. Nano's key features

2.1 Block Lattice

Nano utilizes Block Lattice as its network structure, which aims to allow faster transaction times than that of blockchains which require full network consensus for transactions. Another key difference between Nano and other blockchain networks is that the Nano validators do not collect transaction fees nor block rewards. The validators protect the network so the value of their NANO tokens will not fall.

Block Lattice is a data structure in which individual accounts control their own blockchain. Each account chain can only be updated by the account's owner; this allows each account chain to be updated immediately and asynchronously to the rest of the Block Lattice, resulting in quick transactions. Nano nodes only come to intervention when there is a conflict in transactions.

The system is initiated with a genesis account containing the genesis balance. The genesis balance is a fixed quantity and can never be increased. It is divided and sent to other accounts via Send Transactions registered on the genesis account-chain. The sum of the balances of all accounts will never exceed the initial genesis balance which gives the system an upper bound on quantity and no ability to increase it.

In Block Lattice, transactions occur between accounts with two separate actions:

1. The sender publishes a block debiting their own account for the amount to be sent to the receiving account.
2. The receiver publishes a matching block crediting their own account for the amount sent.

Once a block sending funds is confirmed by the network, the transaction goes into a pending state and cannot be reversed. The receiver can be offline and safely leave the funds in this state until they are ready to publish a matching block which receives the funds to their account.

2.2 Representatives and voting

Nano has a unique consensus mechanism called Open Representative Voting. Every account can freely choose a Representative at any time to vote on his behalf, even when the delegating account itself is offline. Representative accounts are configured on nodes that remain online and vote on the validity of transactions they see in the network. Their voting weight is derived from the sum of balances for accounts delegating to them. There are two types of node Representatives in the Nano network, namely, Rebroadcasting Representative and Principal Representative. If a node has 0.1% or more of the total network voting power, it will become a Principal Representative. Principal Representatives are leaders of the network, whose votes will be broadcasted throughout the network by the Rebroadcasting Representatives. The votes these Principal Representatives send out will subsequently be rebroadcasted by other nodes. As these votes are shared and rebroadcasted between nodes, they are tallied up and compared against the online voting weight available. Once a node sees a block get enough votes to reach quorum, that block is confirmed. Due to the lightweight nature of blocks and votes, the network is able to reach confirmation for transactions quickly.

2.3 Proof of Work mechanism to prevent spam

To initiate a transaction in the Nano network, a Proof of Work task must be performed by the sender.

In contrast to other blockchains which uses Proof of Work for network consensus, the Proof-of-Work tasks in Nano are only used *to prevent spam attacks. For instance, a malicious entity could send many unnecessary but valid transactions between accounts under its control in an attempt to saturate the network.

With no transaction fees he would be able to continue this attack indefinitely. However, the Proof of Work required for each transaction limits the transaction rate the malicious entity could generate without significantly investing in computational resources.

3. Economics and supply

Nano employed a CAPTCHA faucet system with the goal of distributing NANO as fairly and organically as possible. Opened on October 1, 2015, the faucet required users to complete complex CAPTCHA tests in order to earn coins. The faucet allowed anyone with a computer to participate by contributing time and attention. Upon closure of the CAPTCHA faucet, 39% of the initially planned supply had been distributed and 7,000,000 NANO were reserved for a development fund. The rest were burned resulting in 133,248,297 NANO left as the circulating supply.

Following the closure of the distribution faucet, there was a single fund created with only ~5.25% of the circulating supply. This development fund is managed by the Nano Foundation and is reserved for development, adoption and other community support purposes. As of writing of this report, 58% of this reserve fund has been used.

All NANO tokens are currently in circulation.

4. Roadmap, updates, and business development

4.1 Original roadmap and achievements

The table below shows only the recent developments for Nano. For the full development record from 2014, please see here.

4.2 Updated roadmap

The Nano Foundation maintains updated details about past, current and future node releases and features in the following documentations:

• Past and current releases
• Upcoming features

4.3 Late milestone

The Nano team stated that the release of Nano Node V19 (Solidus) was delayed due to the size of this update and extensive testings.

4.4 Commercial partnerships and business development progress

Core development of the Nano protocol is managed by the Nano Foundation, a non-profit software development company. The primary focus of the Nano Foundation is the development of the protocol, supporting organic ecosystem growth and fostering adoption. Prioritization is mainly given to increasing the availability of accepting NANO as a form of payment.

• Wirex: Wirex is a UK-based, FCA-regulated company which provides crypto payment services. The NANO token is supported on Wirex as one of the payment methods.
• CoinGate: CoinGate is crypto-fiat gateway and payment processor company. The NANO token has been integrated as a payment method.
• Uphold: Uphold is a company which allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with fiat easily. The NANO token is one of the supported cryptocurrencies.
• crypto.com: crypto.com is a wallet that allows users to buy, sell, and pay with cryptocurrencies. Users can convert their NANO tokens to fiat currencies and pay for goods and services, using the MCO VISA card issued by crypto.com.
• Metal Pay: Metal Pay is a blockchain-based payment processing platform based in the USA. The NANO token is included as a payment method.
• Kappture: Kappture is a company which builds the electronic point of sale (EPoS) systems used by large event organisers and demanding businesses worldwide. Kappture has integrated NANO as a payment method for its EPoS systems.
• BrainBlocks: BrainBlocks is a Nano-centric payment ecosystem allowing merchants to accept NANO online, across a range of plugins and webapps.
• Nanoodle: With a primary focus on the business adoption of Nano, Nanoodle aims to provide products that will fulfill the needs of users and organizations utilizing Nano. They offer a range of features such as NANOODLE Books, an accountancy software integration platform for Nano, and NANOODLE Invoice, which provides the ability to generate a QR code for an account to request a specific amount of NANO.
• Snapy.io: Snapy.io is a free, scalable and secure API that offers an accessible platform for developers to build on Nano without the overhead of running their own node implementation. Allowing any developer, independent of their tech stack, to start building or integrating on top of Nano.

5. Product description

Wallets

The Nano community has developed several wallets for the NANO token. For mobile users, Natrium and Canoe are amongst the most popular wallets. Nanovault.io and Nanowallet.io are the most used web wallets.

Social platforms

Nano has also been integrated into many social media platforms. Users on Twitter, Reddit, Discordand Telegramcan send and receive any amount of NANO freely across the respective platforms.

Gaming

The fee-less and instantaneous transactions of Nano make it suitable for real-time microtransactions in games. NanoQuake is a community project which employs in-game transactions everytime players score a kill or win a round.

Browser extensions

The Nano ecosystem is supported by a range of useful browser plugins. The Nano Tipbot extension adds a convenient button to tweets on a Twitter feed, allowing the quick and easy sending of NANO on the platform. Nano Donate is another extension, which facilitates donations to participating websites, supporting multiple addresses per website.

Visualizers and explorers

There are a number of established Nano block explorers and metric trackers. Users can search account chains in multiple languages using the NanoCrawler.cc block explorer. Users can also view live network speeds by sending transactions on NanoSpeed.live.

Nano-Faucet visualizer is a community run initiative that provides a real time visual representation of transactions on the block lattice. Nano Ticker gathers information from dozens of Node monitorsparticipating on the network and provides a clearer and broad view of the state of the network, rather than relying on information provided from a single source.

Some services focus on providing metrics and details about representative nodes so users can delegate their voting weight properly to help drive decentralization. NanoChart.info tracks useful details about the movement of weight over time for top reps, along with their uptime and other details. MyNanoNinja is another example that gives representative node owners the opportunity to provide additional details and links to their nodes in the interest of establishing more trust. After extensive community consultation and with regular reviews in place, MyNanoNinja developed a representative rating system that empowers less experienced users to make a more informed choice of representative.

6. Project team

7. Nano's activity and community overview

7.1 Development activity

The Nano ecosystem contains more than 100 repositories contributing to various solutions on the network. Six of the largest repos are displayed below:

7.2 Social and community data

Current community strategies:

• The Nano team works closely with the NanoCenter, whose primary function is to assist all Nano enthusiasts in building, funding, and implementing projects related to Nano.
• The Nano team has been hosting meetups around the world to provide new users with opportunities to learn more about Nano through personal interactions and hands on workshops.

Future community strategies:

• Launch of new website and forum.
• Project content localization (full translations into Portuguege, Spanish and Mandarin).
• Hosting podcasts, hackathons, and AMAs to engage with the wider developer and crypto community.

7.3 Community and social channels

Telegram (English)
Telegram (Spanish)
Telegram (Chinese)
Twitter (English)
Reddit (English)
Instagram (English)
Medium (English)

8. Appendix

Videos

• Transaction demo
• A visualization of the first 5 years of development of Nano
• Colin LeMahieu at Blockchain for Europe event

Advisors

• Andy Woolmer (CEO of NewChange FX)