Nimiq in a Nutshell

A simple, secure and censorship-resistant cryptocurrency, native to the web.

The Pitch

Nimiq is blockchain technology inspired by Bitcoin but designed for the browser.

Implemented in Rust and JavaScript, Nimiq empowers web developers to easily access and build on it. Only three lines of code connect any web application directly to the blockchain, making it easily accessible to web-based businesses and projects, too.

Unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, Nimiq does not require a third-party node to send transactions directly from the browser. This advantage allows for a new level of accessibility and user experience without the need to compromise on decentralization or censorship-resistance. Empowered by these features, Nimiq provides a frictionless transfer and store of value directly applicable to the real world: The NIM cryptocurrency.

NIM is the heart of an ecosystem of applications built by the community and the team alike. The free-to-use browser wallet by Team Nimiq is an example of the simplicity made possible by the browser-first blockchain. Creating a Nimiq account on the website requires no download, no personal data and takes less than 2 minutes. Keys are stored in the user’s browser and are never sent to a server. A redesign (ETA April ’19) will improve account creation, making it faster to create a Nimiq account than a Google or Facebook account. The project donates some NIM to new users. Try it here.

The same level of easy accessibility is projected for buying and selling NIM as well. Nimiq has started working with a non-custodial exchange and a financial institution to facilitate trustless conversions of NIM to other cryptos, as well as NIM ⇆ Euro.

Nimiq’s protocol and application code is open source. It is a community-driven nonprofit project developed by a multinational and tech-focused team.

For Team Nimiq, impact is more than business. Two percent of the total NIM supply has been irrevocably assigned to Nimiq’s charitable foundation, vesting over 10 years. As the value of NIM grows, this foundation will be enabled to support good cause initiatives with high social or ecological impact.

The Tech

Accounts and balances are stored in a Merkle-based accumulator. Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work allow for super lightweight nodes. Consensus can be established in seconds, including on mobile devices. Argon2d is Nimiq’s latency-bound PoW algorithm; Ed25519 Schnorr signatures secure transactions. Currently, there are two implementations of the protocol: JavaScript and Rust. Cryptographic primitives are optimized through WebAssembly in the browser.

A whitepaper for Nimiq 2.0 – the evolution of the current protocol – will soon be published. Nimiq 2.0’s novel consensus algorithm will achieve a performance close to the theoretical maximum of a single-chain protocol.

The Vision

Barrier-free value exchange for everyone.

The Mission

Enable the most accessible,
censorship-resistant payment solutions.

	GENERAL				BITCOIN	ETHEREUM	NIMIQ	NIMIQ 2.0
	Primary use-case				Store of value, censorship-resistant payments	Distributed computing platform, smart contracts	Accessible and censorship-resistant payments
	User interaction				App or website relying on a third-party service/gateway or installing your own node	Installation free web-app that runs your own light node inside your browser
	JavaScript bindings				Yes, but require third-party gateway	Yes, natively	Yes, natively
	Onboarding time (non-custodial wallet)				Several minutes	Several minutes	Less than 2 minutes	Less than 20 seconds

	TECH. SPECS				BITCOIN	ETHEREUM	NIMIQ	NIMIQ 2.0
	Maximum supply				21 million BTC	infinite	21 billion NIM
	On-chain transactions per second				7-15	up to 25	up to 12	1000+
	Average block time				10 minutes	15 seconds	1 minute	seconds
	Current average TX fee				0.10 to 0.20 USD	0.14 – 0.28 USD	0 USD for up to 10 TX per block and sender	N/A
	Light node sync download size				tens of megabytes	hundreds of megabytes	~1MB	TBA
	Consensus algorithm				PoW based on SHA256	PoW, planned to be switched to PoS	PoW based on Argon2d	TBA
	Mining				CPU, GPU and ASICs	CPU, GPU and ASICs	CPU and GPU	TBA
	Smart contracts				Scripts, not Turing-complete