Nano (cryptocurrency)

Nano
Denominations
CodeXNO (formerly NANO, XRB)
Previous namesRaiBlocks
Precision10−30 (raw)
Development
Original authorColin LeMahieu
White paper"Nano – Digital money for the modern world"
Initial release4 October 2015 (11 years ago) (2015-10-04)
Latest releaseV28.2 / 15 September 2025 (13 months ago) (2025-09-15)
Code repositorygithub.com/nanocurrency
Development statusActive
Written inC++
Operating systemLinux, MacOS, Windows
DeveloperNano Foundation
LicenseFreeBSD
Ledger
Timestamping scheme"Open Representative Voting", a form of proof-of-stake
Hash functionBlake2
Issuance scheduleCaptcha faucet (ended 20 October 2017; 9 years ago (2017-10-20))
Supply limit133,248,297
Website
Websitenano.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.

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

History

Colin LeMahieu started the development of Nano in 2014 under the name "RaiBlocks". A year later, RaiBlocks was distributed for free through a captcha-secured faucet. 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. RaiBlocks was rebranded as Nano in 2018. With the distribution phase complete, acquiring the token shifted entirely to secondary markets, circulating via spot exchanges and non-custodial swap services.

BitGrail hack

On February 9, 2018, the Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail announced its hack and eventual shutdown. Users were prevented from accessing assets stored on the platform, which was collectively worth 17 million Nano, about $170 million at the time. In January 2019 the bankruptcy division of the Court of Florence declared BitGrail bankrupt and held its owner Francesco Firano, not the Nano developers, responsible for the losses. A technical report written for the court found that, after a single withdrawal request from a user, BitGrail's own software had sent the Nano node several requests, and the node had no way to recognise them as duplicates. About $1 million of Firano's personal assets were seized. In December 2020 the Italian postal police accused BitGrail's former head of computer fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy and money laundering.

Design

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

Nano's consensus algorithm is similar to proof of stake. 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.

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.[non-primary source needed]

References

  1. 1 2 Baldwin, Rosecrans (2019-11-26). "Cryptocurrency Will Not Die Archived 2020-12-03 at the Wayback Machine". GQ. Retrieved 2020-12-22.
  2. ↑ Hrga, Alen; Capuder, Tomislav; Podnar Žarko, Ivana (2020). "Demystifying Distributed Ledger Technologies: Limits, Challenges, and Potentials in the Energy Sector". IEEE Access. 8: 2169–3536. Bibcode:2020IEEEA...8l6149H. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3007935. S2CID 220667938.
  3. ↑ Bencic, Federico Matteo; Podnar Zarko, Ivana (2018). "Distributed Ledger Technology: Blockchain Compared to Directed Acyclic Graph". 2018 IEEE 38th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). pp. 1569–1570. arXiv:1804.10013. doi:10.1109/ICDCS.2018.00171. ISBN 978-1-5386-6871-9. S2CID 13741873.
  4. ↑ Easley, David; O'Hara, Maureen; Basu, Soumya (2019). "From mining to markets: The evolution of bitcoin transaction fees". Journal of Financial Economics. 134: 91–109. doi:10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.03.004. S2CID 158896456.
  5. ↑ Morais, Rui; Crocker, Paul; Melo De Sousa, Simao (2020). "A Tool for Implementing Privacy in Nano". 2020 IEEE International Conference on Decentralized Applications and Infrastructures (DAPPS). pp. 159–163. doi:10.1109/DAPPS49028.2020.00021. hdl:10400.6/7645. ISBN 978-1-7281-6978-1. S2CID 209471367.
  6. ↑ "Initial commit". GitHub. 2014-05-01. Archived from the original on 2020-10-16. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  7. ↑ Bottone, Michele; Raimondi, Franco; Primiero, Giuseppe (2018-07-23). "Multi-agent Based Simulations of Block-Free Distributed Ledgers". 2018 32nd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops (WAINA). Krakow, Poland. pp. 585–590. doi:10.1109/WAINA.2018.00149. ISBN 978-1-5386-5395-1. S2CID 50774787.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ↑ Wall Street Journal (2018-03-03). "Crypto Investing Comes With a Big Risk: The Exchanges Archived 2018-03-07 at the Wayback Machine". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
  9. ↑ "Nano Price: Raiblocks Cryptocurrency Rebrands as XRB Price Soars". Inverse. 2018-01-31. Retrieved 2024-05-25.
  10. ↑ "Nano (XNO) Exchange and Purchase Guide". ChangeNOW. Retrieved 2026-10-19.
  11. ↑ Morris, David (11 February 2018). "BitGrail Cryptocurrency Exchange Claims $195 Million Lost to Hackers". Fortune. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  12. ↑ Vigna, Paul (2018-02-10). "Cryptocurrency Worth $170 Million Missing From Italian Exchange". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2026-10-19.
  13. ↑ Hatmaker, Taylor (12 February 2018). "Italian cryptocurrency exchange gets hacked for $170 million in Nano". Techcrunch. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  14. 1 2 "Italian court rules that cryptocurrency is "property" and a "means of payment"". Talking Tech. Clifford Chance. 1 October 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
  15. 1 2 "Court rules against BitGrail's 'The Bomber' over $170 million Nano hack". Decrypt. 28 January 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
  16. ↑ "Italian police accuse cryptocurrency exchange boss of huge fraud". Reuters. 21 December 2020. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  17. 1 2 Shahaab, A.; Lidgey, B.; Hewage, C.; Khan, I. (2019). "Applicability and Appropriateness of Distributed Ledgers Consensus Protocols in Public and Private Sectors: A Systematic Review". IEEE Access. 7: 43622–43636. Bibcode:2019IEEEA...743622S. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2904181. S2CID 108390582.
  18. ↑ Xiao, Y.; Lou, W.; Thomas Hou, Y. (2020). "A Survey of Distributed Consensus Protocols for Blockchain Networks". IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. 22 (2): 1432–1465. arXiv:1904.04098. doi:10.1109/COMST.2020.2969706.
  19. ↑ Masood, Faraz; Faridi, Arman Rasool (2018). "Consensus Algorithms in Distributed Ledger Technology for Open Environment". 2018 4th International Conference on Computing Communication and Automation (ICCCA). pp. 1–6. doi:10.1109/CCAA.2018.8777695. ISBN 978-1-5386-6947-1. S2CID 199057702.
  20. ↑ Werner, Robert et al. (2020). "Anonymization of Transactions in Distributed Ledger Technologies". Twelfth International Conference on Adaptive and Self-Adaptive Systems and Applications. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-61208-781-8.
  21. ↑ Mercan, Suat; Kurt, Ahmet; Erdin, Enes; Akkaya, Kemal (2021). "Cryptocurrency Solutions to Enable Micro-payments in Consumer IoT". IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. Vol. 11, no. 2. pp. 97–103. doi:10.1109/MCE.2021.3060720.
  22. ↑ Khalifa, Amr; Bahaa-Eldin, Ayman; Sobh, Mohamed (2019). Blockchain and its Alternative Distributed Ledgers - A Survey. 2019 14th International Conference on Computer Engineering and Systems (ICCES). doi:10.1109/ICCES48960.2019.9068183.
  23. ↑ Nano. "Protocol Design - ORV Consensus". nano.org. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021. Retrieved 27 February 2021.