Nano XNO / Nano

## What Is Nano (XNO)? Billed as "digital money for the modern world," nano is a lightweight cryptocurrency that is designed to facilitate secure, practically instant payments, without fees, and addresses some of the major limitations of both legacy financial infrastructure, and many modern cryptocurrencies.

Development of the project began in 2014 under the name RaiBlocks, and the coin (then termed XRB) launched the following year through a public faucet, which allowed users to claim small amounts of XRB after completing a captcha challenge. Anyone with access to a computer or phone could solve captchas, and be rewarded with RaiBlocks. The number of XRB people received per solved captcha varied over time

RaiBlocks (XRB) was rebranded to Nano in January 2018, with the new name chosen to better represent the speed and simplicity the project offers to users.

It is a peer-to-peer platform that uses a unique block-lattice data structure to allow users to easily transfer value to one another without relying on centralized intermediaries.

Unlike other platforms which typically use the combined proof-of-work of a massive mining network to achieve consensus, nano instead uses a system known as Open Representative Voting (ORV) — which sees account holders vote for their chosen representative, who then work to confirm blocks of transactions securely.

ORV makes Nano extremely energy efficient, positioning it as a more environmentally friendly alternative to proof-of-work (POW)-based cryptocurrencies.

In November, 2021, aiming to bring nano to the real world and to comply with the globally-recognized standards of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) requirements, nano adopted a new ticker and a standard symbol: XNO and Ӿ.

Who Are the Founders of Nano?

Nano was founded by Colin LeMahieu, a heavily experienced software developer and engineer with a wealth of experience working for prominent tech companies, including Dell, AMD and Qualcomm.

Self-described as an inventor, LeMahieu has interests that range from space technology to physics and environmental sustainability, and is a well-known name in the digital currency space. He began working full time on nano in 2017 and remains the Director of the Nano Foundation — an organization created to drive the development and adoption of nano — to this day.

Colin LeMahieu also pushed the vast majority of commits to Nano’s GitHub repo.