Nano (cryptocurrency)

Last updated
Nano
Nano-logo.svg
Denominations
CodeXNO [lower-alpha 1] (formerly NANO, XRB)
Previous namesRaiBlocks [1]
Precision10−30 (raw)
Development
Original author(s)Colin LeMahieu
White paper "Nano – Digital money for the modern world"
Initial release4 October 2015(8 years ago) (2015-10-04)
Latest release V27.1 / 9 September 2024(18 days ago) (2024-09-09)
Code repository github.com/nanocurrency
Development statusActive
Written in C++
Operating system Linux, MacOS, Windows
Developer(s) Nano Foundation
License FreeBSD
Ledger
Timestamping scheme "Open Representative Voting", a form of proof-of-stake
Hash function Blake2
Issuance scheduleCaptcha faucet (ended 20 October 2017;6 years ago (2017-10-20))
Supply limit133,248,297
Website
Website nano.org
  1. Compatible with ISO 4217, though is not approved

Nano (Abbreviation: XNO) is a cryptocurrency characterized by a directed acyclic graph data structure and distributed ledger, making it possible for Nano to work without intermediaries. To agree on what transactions to commit (i.e., achieving consensus), it uses a voting system with weight based on the amount of currency an account holds. [2] [3]

Contents

Nano was launched in October 2015 by Colin LeMahieu to address the Bitcoin scalability problem and was created to reduce confirmation times and fees. [4] The currency implements no-fee transactions and achieves confirmation in under one second. [5]

History

Colin LeMahieu started the development of Nano in 2014 under the name "RaiBlocks". [1] [6] A year later, RaiBlocks was distributed for free through a captcha-secured faucet. [7] In 2017, after 126,248,289 RaiBlocks were distributed, the faucet shut down. This fixed the total supply to 133,248,297 RaiBlocks, after addition of a 7,000,000 RaiBlocks developer fund. [8] RaiBlocks was rebranded as Nano in 2018. [9]

BitGrail hack

On February 9, 2018, an Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail announced its hack and eventual shutdown. [10] Users were prevented from accessing assets stored on the platform, which was collectively worth 17 million Nano. [11] The victims then launched a class-action lawsuit against BitGrail owner Francesco Firano for recoupment, inside the Florence Courthouse. The exchange was ruled to be guilty in January 2019, as it was found to fail at implementing safeguards and reporting losses. [12] The Italian police branch Network Operations Command (Italy) alleged the Bitgrail founder had conducted fraud. [13] Nano prices had been around $10 prior to the hack and after the hack fell to $1. [14]

Design

Nano uses a block-lattice data structure, where every account has its own blockchain for storing transactions. [15] [16] It is the first cryptocurrency to use a directed acyclic graph data structure, [17] by having a "block" consisting of only one transaction and the account's current balance. [18] [15]

Nano's consensus algorithm is similar to proof of stake. [19] In this system, the voting weight is distributed to accounts based on the amount of Nano they hold; accounts then freely delegate this weight to a peer (node) of their choice. [20]

If two contradictory transactions are broadcast to the network, indicating a double-spend attempt, nodes will vote for both transactions and broadcast their vote to the other nodes. The first transaction to reach 67% of the total voting weight is confirmed, while the other is considered invalid. [21] [ non-primary source needed ]

Related Research Articles

Double-spending is the unauthorized production and spending of money, either digital or conventional. It represents a monetary design problem: a good money is verifiably scarce, and where a unit of value can be spent more than once, the monetary property of scarcity is challenged. As with counterfeit money, such double-spending leads to inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. Like all increasingly abundant resources, this devalues the currency relative to other monetary units or goods and diminishes user trust as well as the circulation and retention of the currency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin</span> Decentralized digital currency

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Mining consumes large quantities of electricity and has been criticized for its environmental impact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It has, from a financial point of view, grown to be its own asset class. However, on the contrary to other asset classes like equities or commodities, sectors have not been officially defined as of yet, though abstract versions of them exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin protocol</span> Rules that govern the functioning of Bitcoin

The Bitcoin protocol is the set of rules that govern the functioning of Bitcoin. Its key components and principles are: a peer-to-peer decentralized network with no central oversight; the blockchain technology, a public ledger that records all Bitcoin transactions; mining and proof of work, the process to create new bitcoins and verify transactions; and cryptographic security.

Proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols are a class of consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency. This is done to avoid the computational cost of proof-of-work (POW) schemes. The first functioning use of PoS for cryptocurrency was Peercoin in 2012, although the scheme, on the surface, still resembled a POW.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethereum</span> Open-source blockchain computing platform

Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software.

A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain, with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks.

A decentralised application is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system. Like traditional applications, DApps provide some function or utility to its users. However, unlike traditional applications, DApps operate without human intervention and are not owned by any one entity, rather DApps distribute tokens that represent ownership. These tokens are distributed according to a programmed algorithm to the users of the system, diluting ownership and control of the DApp. Without any one entity controlling the system, the application is therefore decentralised.

A distributed ledger is a system whereby replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data is geographically spread (distributed) across many sites, countries, or institutions. In contrast to a centralized database, a distributed ledger does not require a central administrator, and consequently does not have a single (central) point-of-failure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firo (cryptocurrency)</span> Cryptocurrency

Firo, formerly known as Zcoin, is a cryptocurrency aimed at using cryptography to provide better privacy for its users compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verge (cryptocurrency)</span> Cryptocurrency

Verge Currency is a decentralized open-source cryptocurrency which offers various levels of private transactions. It does this by obfuscating the IP addresses of users with Tor and by leveraging stealth transactions making it difficult to determine the geolocation of its users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IOTA (technology)</span> Open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency

IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things (IoT). It uses a directed acyclic graph to store transactions on its ledger, motivated by a potentially higher scalability over blockchain based distributed ledgers. IOTA does not use miners to validate transactions, instead, nodes that issue a new transaction on the network must approve two previous transactions. Transactions can therefore be issued without fees, facilitating microtransactions. The network currently achieves consensus through a coordinator node, operated by the IOTA Foundation. As the coordinator is a single point of failure, the network is currently centralized.

Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology that has been described as an alternative to blockchains.The hashgraph technology is currently patented, is used by the public ledger Hedera, and there is a grant to implement the patent as a result of the Apache 2.0's Grant of Patent License so long as the implementation conforms to the terms of the Apache license. The native cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph system is HBAR.

A blockchain is a shared database that records transactions between two parties in an immutable ledger. Blockchain documents and confirms pseudonymous ownership of all transactions in a verifiable and sustainable way. After a transaction is validated and cryptographically verified by other participants or nodes in the network, it is made into a "block" on the blockchain. A block contains information about the time the transaction occurred, previous transactions, and details about the transaction. Once recorded as a block, transactions are ordered chronologically and cannot be altered. This technology rose to popularity after the creation of Bitcoin, the first application of blockchain technology, which has since catalyzed other cryptocurrencies and applications.

Bithumb is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. Founded in 2014, Bithumb Korea has 8 million registered users, 1 million mobile app users, and a current cumulative transaction volume has exceeded USD $1 trillion.

Blockchain analysis is the process of inspecting, identifying, clustering, modeling and visually representing data on a cryptographic distributed-ledger known as a blockchain. The goal of blockchain analysis is to discover useful information about different actors transacting in cryptocurrency. Analysis of public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is typically conducted by private companies like Chainalysis, TRM Labs, Elliptic, Nansen, CipherTrace, Elementus, Dune Analytics, CryptoQuant, and Ormi Labs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tron (cryptocurrency)</span> Blockchain computing platform

TRON is a decentralized, blockchain-based operating system with smart contract functionality, proof-of-stake principles as its consensus algorithm and a cryptocurrency native to the system, known as Tronix (TRX). It was established in March 2014 by Justin Sun and since 2017 has been overseen and supervised by the TRON Foundation, a non-profit organization in Singapore, established in the same year. It is open-source software.

The blockchain-based database is a combination of traditional database and distributed database where data is transacted and recorded via Database Interface supported by multiple-layers of blockchains. The database itself is shared in the form of an encrypted/immutable ledger which makes the information open for everyone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ouroboros (protocol)</span> Blockchain protocol

Ouroboros is a family of proof-of-stake consensus protocols used in the Cardano and Polkadot blockchains. It can run both permissionless and permissioned blockchains.

Algorand is a proof-of-stake blockchain and cryptocurrency. Algorand's native cryptocurrency is called ALGO.

References

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