The vision of Nano - an instant, feeless and green crypto
What Nano is meant for - (micro)payments, remittances, donations, and a secure store of value for everyone.
While I’ve written a lot on what Nano can do and how well it works, I haven’t written about the vision behind Nano. Front and center on the Nano website is the Nano Foundation’s motto:
Nano makes money efficient for a more equal world - simple to pay with, easy to accept and open to all.
Nano’s fundamentals fit this creed. Being instant and feeless, Nano works extremely well as cash. The user experience is smooth - without fees, transacting is as simple as scanning a QR code and hitting send. It’s efficient - Nano transactions barely use energy, meaning the entire network can be run on the energy output of a single wind turbine. It’s money, designed from the ground up to be as frictionless as possible.
So how can this be used in practice? A few examples.
Remittances
Many foreign workers send remittances home. In fact, roughly $500 billion is sent back to lower income countries, yearly. Costs for this remain incredibly high, at an average of 6.8%. How can Nano help here?
As long as there is a crypto exchange on both ends, Nano offers incredible cost savings. It’s possible to buy Nano for a total cost of (far) under 0.5% in the US, and to sell Nano for a total cost of under 0.5% in for example Indonesia.1
A foreign worker in the US can therefore buy $100 worth of Nano and send it to their relatives in Indonesia, where they can exchange it into IDR instantly. This is cheaper and far faster than traditional remittance methods. In other words, more money, arriving more quickly.
Merchant payments
Merchants tend to focus on driving down costs. Many merchants work on slim margins, where a few percent difference in costs can make the difference between profit or loss. Currently, merchants pay an average of 2–3% in payment processing fees.
This is a clear case where Nano can help. As a merchant, I can price my products in USD (or EUR, or NGN), convert that price into a Nano price at current exchange rates automatically, and take payment in Nano. I can send that Nano on to an exchange instantly, feelessly, and instantly exchange it into any currency of my choice there, usually at 0.1–0.5% fees.
This is far cheaper than using traditional payment processors, incredibly easy to set up through NowPayments, GoNano, CoinEmbed or AcceptNano, works both for physical and online stores, and works in any country with a crypto exchange that trades Nano.
Additionally, this allows merchants to receive payments from anywhere on earth, without having to implement a legion of different payments options. Nano can be used from anywhere, sent to anywhere, with the receiver able to convert it into any currency of their choice.
Accepting donations
Similar to how Nano is ideal for merchants to accept payments instantly and feelessly, Nano is a fantastic solution for charities. If you’re a charity in Uganda, it can be difficult to receive donations from Americans and Europeans. It comes with high costs, reducing the amount of money that arrives at the charity, increasing the profit of payment processing companies.
Nano allows the Ugandan charity to receive donations instantly, feelessly, from any country in the world. Their only cost will be exchanging Nano for fiat of their choice on a crypto exchange, typically 0.5% or lower.
This means less money going to middlemen, and more money arriving directly at charities where it’s most needed. This can be implemented very easily, by simply pasting a Nano_ address or Nano QR code onto your website, using a (free) service such as Coindrop.to, or accepting donations through NowPayments.
Micropayments
Nano’s feeless nature allows for the sort of microtransactions that are not possible with regular payment options. Some fun examples of this are the Nano Birdfeeder, a Nano beer tap, or even turning on a lamp with Nano.
Aside from these fun, small implementations, it also allows for the ability to pay cents to read an article or other content behind a paywall with nPass. For newspapers, this offers an alternative to requiring readers to buy a full subscription. Rather than showing ads, websites can show articles in exchange for a $0.03 payment.
Twitch is especially well suited to micropayments like these — tip your streamer in Nano, and they get the full amount, instantly. On a personal note, I often receive small tips after sharing these articles, and often tip people some Nano on Reddit to make it easier for them to try it out. Nano has these Tipbots for Twitter/Telegram, Whatsapp, and Reddit, allowing anyone to tip some Nano if they see content they like.
Another example is KarmaCall using Nano to stop spam calls. Unknown callers (not contacts) must deposit a small amount of Nano. If you answer the call and talk for more than 25 seconds, the caller gets their Nano deposit refunded. In doing so, spam callers literally have to pay for your time, while those you actually want to talk to are unaffected. All the above are examples of transaction amounts that would be impossible with any regular payment service, but possible thanks to Nano’s feeless nature.
Secure store of value
If you’re reading this as a citizen of a country with a stable monetary policy, this might not seem like a big deal to you. However, if you’re Turkish, Venezuelan, Nigerian or from any of the many countries with high inflation, you will recognize that it’s painful to see your money becoming worth less, rapidly.
Central banks can increase the money supply of their currency. By doing so, the value of the money that you hold decreases. Nano solves this, by having a fixed supply, with no additional Nano ever able to be created.
It’s mathematically impossible to create more Nano. For this, and for several other reasons, Nano may just be the best store of value, allowing anyone around the world to securely store their money in a currency that will never be debased, a form of money that at a fundamental level no one can alter and no one entity controls.
Nano as efficient money
All the above serves to illustrate that Nano makes money efficient, for everyone. By offering instant and feeless transactions, Nano allows you to save on payment processing costs, to send money cross-border, and to save money using a secure store of value. It’s an open network, that anyone can join at any time, from anywhere, and start using instantly.
You can easily try Nano out for free, within 2 minutes.
Get a free Nano wallet (Android here, iOS here, web here).
Visit a free Nano Faucet (alternative).
Fill in your Nano_ address and hit send.
That’s all! To really try it out I’d recommend getting a second wallet (Natrium, Nault, or Nalli), then sending some Nano from your first wallet to the second. It’ll show you that Nano truly is instant, feeless and that the user experience is smooth. The goal is to get some Nano into everyone’s hands, one person at a time.
You now have some Nano. Welcome to the future of money!
I hope you enjoyed the article and I hope that it’s demonstrated the many uses that truly borderless, secure and decentralized efficient currency offers. If you have any questions, feel free to either reply to me here, message me on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/user/SenatusSPQR/), or join the Nano subreddit (r/nanocurrency) where many Nano enthusiasts hang out.
I’ve written other articles about why Nano may be the best store of value, how Nano helps in the fight against the climate crisis, and how Nano becomes ever more decentralized over time.
For an (incomplete) list of where to exchange Nano, see https://nano.org/get-nano.