Why Nano

In this article, we begin by discussing the disadvantages of using Bitcoin (Layer 1) to make or receive a payment.

Then we discuss alternatives, such as Nano.

Transaction Fees

If you send Bitcoin from one wallet to another (on-chain), it costs a fee, because Bitcoin "Miners" charge a fee for confirming your transaction.

Miners are hundreds of thousands of people around the world running the Bitcoin software on their computers.

The Miner's fee can be as little as $1 during times of less volume, but Bitcoin fees regularly surpass $10-20+ when the network is experiencing higher activity levels.

As Bitcoin usage increases, the fees will increase. The highest recorded fee was $60+ so far and there is no end in sight.

If you have much less Bitcoin in your wallet than the average transaction fee, then you might not be able to send your Bitcoin anywhere.

Transaction Time

If you send Bitcoin from one wallet to another, it takes time for your transaction to register in the network.

This is because the miners, or computers, around the world are confirming your transaction. Due to Bitcoin's legacy technology, miners can only confirm up to 5 transactions per second.

This means that it takes at least 10 minutes for a transaction to confirm in Bitcoin's network.

The constraints of Bitcoin's technology causes a scalability problem and the long transaction times make Bitcoin unusable for everyday transactions, like buying a cup of coffee.

If you try to buy a cup of coffee from someone with Bitcoin, the cashier will have to wait at least 10 mins to confirm the transaction on their end.

Currently, many exchanges and businesses wait about an hour to confirm incoming Bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin, as a micro-payment option, increased usage in the business world at one point, but most shops and stores have stopped accepting Bitcoin as form of payment for everyday goods and services.

Energy Efficiency

Bitcoin is not energy efficient nor eco-friendly, and Bitcoin will use more energy as the network grows. This leads to a large carbon footprint and contributes to the worsening of climate change.

This is because miners, or computers around the world, are running the Bitcoin software in order to confirm transactions, secure the network, mint new Bitcoins, and keep the network decentralized all at the same time.

The problem is that Bitcoin software requires immense computing and energy resources to run. Miners require very powerful computers to mine Bitcoin.

Currently, Bitcoin is thought to use about 1% of the world's electricity which is more than some entire country's energy use.

And the large demand for computers has caused a shortage in supply for parts, meaning people like researchers or gamers can't get the equipment they need at reasonable prices.

Lightning Network & Bitcoin Alternatives

The Bitcoin development team may release updates in the future to address Bitcoin's shortcomings. For example, developers are working on making the Lightning Network viable, which is a layer 2 solution. In my opinion, a layer 2 solution defeats the purpose of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, but I won't get into that here.

Until layer 1 Bitcoin becomes more scalable, there's many other cryptocurrencies that have come out as alternatives or competitors to Bitcoin. The important word here is currencies - these are cryptos that are focused on peer-to-peer transactions as their main use case.

Such cryptocurrencies include:

• Bitcoin Cash

• Litecoin

• Ripple

• Stellar Lumens

• Dogecoin

• Nano

• Digitbyte

Some of these are a copy of the Bitcoin code with custom tweaks, and other projects are original ideas. But all these alternatives have the same use case and mission - to send value from one place to another as efficiently as possible.

These coins tackle challenges with decentralized currency like speed, fees, energy use, and scalability, but most of these cryptocurrencies still have a small fee associated with using them. In my opinion, the difference between low-fees and feeless is huge.

Being feeless is not just a psychological thing - it opens up a whole industry of use cases such as when 2miners decided Nano was a great payout option for their miners. Nano is one of the only cryptocurrencies currently that is feeless. Other feeless cryptos include Vite and Iota.

Click here to see a comparison of the fees and confirmation times for several cryptos.

In my opinion, a majority of people would prefer to use a coin that has 0 fees, even if the alternative's fees are a fraction of a cent. I can't imagine a future where a majority of the cryptos in the market have fees, and Nano is in a good position to lead this segment of the market.

Nano

Nano is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2014 by Colin Lemahieu in the U.S. Colin developed Nano from scratch as an alternative to Bitcoin, to address Bitcoin's shortfalls.

Nano has a combination of all the best qualities that make it a superior cryptocurrency.

Nano is:

• Fast - transactions are usually confirmed almost instantly, in under 1 second

• Fee-less - it costs nothing (0.0 Nano) to send Nano from one wallet to another

• Eco-friendly - the Nano software is not as energy-intensive and doesn't require as much computing resources as Bitcoin to secure the network, keep it decentralized, and confirm transactions

• Low-carbon footprint - Nano does not require mining to create/mint new Nano "coins", because all 133 million Nano coins were already created and distributed fairly from the start

• Scalable - the Nano software is designed to be able to handle thousands of transactions per second, instead of just a few transactions per second like Bitcoin

• Decentralized - even though Nano does not require mining, and you can't earn money passively for holding or mining Nano, people still voluntarily host the Nano code on computers all around the world because they believe in the project, they are invested, or because their business takes Nano payments and so they need to run the software to confirm transactions

• Deflationary - there is no inflation in nano; the full supply of nano is already circulating (~133 million nano) and the nano was initially distributed fairly and for free to anyone who wanted it

Nano does not need as powerful computers to run as Bitcoin does. And Nano is energy-efficient enough that the whole Nano network can run from the energy of just one windmill.

Final words

If you had a choice between using a cryptocurrency that costs 1¢ and a few minutes to transfer, versus a cryptocurrency that costs $0.00 and <1 second, which would you choose? Even credit card transactions take longer than 1 second to confirm.

Nano's developers are working hard on making Nano the best cryptocurrency for peer-to-peer transactions. This is the sole goal of the project - to be the best form of money in the world.

Nano is not trying to compete with cryptos like Ethereum, because Nano does not need or use smart contracts or "dapps".

Businesses who want to use Nano open up a whole world of possibilities, due to the no-fees and scalability of the software.

No fees and instant transactions means Nano can easily be used to make small transactions such as buying a cup of coffee, making it accessible to people all around the world. And no inflation means your money won't become devalued over time.