Anywhere money is used, nano can do better, – interview with the Nano team

A 100% sustainable cryptocurrency, Nano, is here with some insights on the project – read more in a special interview with LetsExchange

How does your project stand out from competition? Does it have any unique features? What value does it deliver?

Nano has several unique features that not only make it stand out in the cryptocurrency space, but also fit perfectly as a currency. Nano is built to be the most efficient currency in the world, fixing issues prevalent in both cryptocurrency and fiat currencies. This means as little waste as possible. Instead of adding more, nano goes for simplicity. Do one thing, and do it well. For nano, that is being a currency.

• No time wasted – nano is the fastest currency in the world, with transactions confirmed in less than a second on average.
• Nano stands out because it has no transaction fees. Send nano anywhere in the world, fee-free! 1 nano sent is 1 nano received.
• Due to nano’s Open Representative Voting consensus mechanism, nano doesn’t rely on mining to reach a consensus and prevent double-spending. This makes nano highly energy efficient, and often mentioned as the most sustainable and energy-efficient cryptocurrency.
  

How can your solutions be applied to use real-world problems? What use cases does your product have?

Anywhere money is used, nano can do better. With the unique features of nano, allowing fee-free and instant transactions worldwide, nano can be used very well for many different use cases. One that immediately comes to mind is remittances. Remittances is a billion dollar industry and many traditional remittance systems have high fees and can take days to settle. Nano has the potential to be a real game changer in this industry, by being able to send money abroad in less than a second without any fee.

Another one is microtransactions/micropayments. Nano can be divided into very small bits as it has 30 decimals. Because nano is fee-free, the smallest transactions are possible allowing micropayments or micro rewards. For instance, a company called FynCom uses nano to reward people for each word they translate on CrowdIn. They also use nano to punish robocalls and spam, and to incentivise customer engagement. There is also a lot of potential for microtransactions with nano in the gaming industry.

The easy accessibility of nano also makes it possible for those that do not have access to banking infrastructure to interact with the global economy. The traditional banking system excludes many by having a high barrier to entry. In fact, 1.4 billion people in the world do not have access to banking infrastructure, either because they don’t have sufficient money to open a bank account or because they don’t have the necessary documentation. With nano, all that one needs is a phone and an internet connection!

Do you believe there are any real competitors to your project? How do you differ from them? What are your unique benefits?

We don't see currencies or companies as competitors per se, there are just many options out there and depending on what you want to achieve, one option might be better than the other. However, the goal of nano is to solve many of the issues of currencies, be it crypto or fiat currency. In the end, nano is an option for people to choose.

If people want to transact fee-free, globally, in less than a second, on a decentralized network using a currency that has a fixed supply and is highly efficient, then they have that option with nano. It's a great option for sending, receiving and storing value that is super easy to use. Especially in places where the local currency is losing value due to money printing, nano can be a great alternative because no one can increase the money supply.

Especially for those wanting to own their money and have self custody over it, nano is a great option since installing a non-custodial wallet and withdrawing your nano to it takes a matter of minutes! This is important in this time where trust in institutions such as banks is dwindling in many regions of the world. There is now an easy alternative to have control over your own money, digitally.

How do you see your project geographically? Where do you believe your main audience is located?

We focus on emerging economies with a high and increasing rate of mobile penetration but where banking infrastructure is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to access for people. Also where the risk of hyperinflation devaluing people’s savings and other issues are high. One such region is Nigeria. We have a very active community there, with people building apps, websites and businesses with nano and even accepting nano for food and drinks. But also Brazil, India, Uganda are countries where we’re seeing more and more adoption of nano and growing communities. It’s because people there see the potential for nano in their country and what nano can do to help people. An alternative to the status quo. Something that can be spent and accepted in the real world as well as the digital world.

Did you face any difficulties when working on the project? What were they?

Creating something new comes with many difficulties and challenges. Especially pioneering something that has never been done before. Creating a currency, spreading awareness of it, getting it in the hands of people and encouraging the use of it is all difficult to do while continuously trying to adapt to a changing regulatory landscape worldwide. Doing all that as a non-profit organization, with a small team and a limited budget, makes it all the more difficult. But we don’t step away from a challenge and we believe that, together with the amazingly talented and powerful nano community, we can push that adoption step by step over time. It’s amazing how much people are willing to do once they know and understand the potential of nano.

Additionally, the cryptocurrency space doesn’t always have the best public reputation especially when it comes to energy consumption and the speculation in the space. We try to distance ourselves a bit from that and show that nano is highly efficient and sustainable with little energy consumption, and that we want nano to be a currency that people use, a currency to be spent and accepted globally, and that even though the price of nano fluctuates depending on demand, being a speculative asset is not its purpose.

How did the project survive the crypto winter? Did it impact the project’s development?

We continue to build and develop, making the nano protocol as secure and efficient as possible. We keep growing awareness of nano around the globe and growing communities in regions where nano is most needed. For a large part, this crypto winter is more a winter for those that speculate on the price of cryptocurrency. We see it as a time to focus on development and where utility, which we focus on with nano, can thrive. Additionally, the nano community stays active, spreading more awareness around the globe and growing the nano ecosystem by building awesome new projects and businesses using nano.

A question to founders: was there anything that has inspired you to create this specific project?

The idea of a global currency without middlemen, which supply isn’t dependent on the decisions of one entity such as a government or company and is censorship resistant, is such an interesting and powerful idea. However, before nano existed, implementations that tried to achieve this had several problems. One of which is that there would be people trying to make profit from a network like this by asking for fees and block rewards, the high energy consumption, the centralisation over time and more. It was clear that the way cryptocurrencies were built was not sustainable long term and had certain participants profiting off of the network itself. New architecture was needed. And that’s how nano, formerly known as raiblocks, came into existence. A network without direct monetary rewards that lead to centralisation, without wasting energy, and without high barriers of entry or use. A currency that is just that, a currency. As efficient as possible. Do one thing and do it well.

Are there any funny stories that you can share with us? Something in the project development that makes readers remember you?

Instead of having an ICO, nano was initially given away for free through CAPTCHA faucets, those that ask you to click the images of traffic lights or cross walks, etc. Each time a captcha was solved, users would receive some nano. This meant that users anywhere in the world, regardless of their wealth, could get some nano. Because of this, nano was able to spread to many people in emerging economies. Some even earned more through the nano CAPTCHA faucets than they did with their day job. At some point, the amount of Google CAPTCHA’s being solved through the nano faucet was so high that Google even reached out to founder Colin LeMahieu saying they were taking up more than 11% of Google’s global Captcha traffic!