For most of the people, cryptocurrency and blockchain are vaguely familiar terms which are associated to Bitcoin and ‘stuff’ too complicate to understand or learn about.

To bridge the gap and enable mass adoption, Nimiq is making crypto simple and easy to use so everyone can learn about blockchain technology and start using cryptocurrencies. 

How to open a NIMIQ account

Nimiq can be used by anyone who have access to a web browser (Brave, Chrome, Firefox,Opera,…). 

Anyone can create a NIMIQ account in matter of seconds… if you don’t care too much about the avatar. 

If you are actually looking for a cute avatar, to open an account it may take a couple of minutes until you find the right one…

Just give it a try and you will see.

Once you have created you first account, there are a few of ways to start earning your first NIM coins. After all, you don’t want just an empty account…

Earning NIM through a NIM faucet

First and easiest, you can get some small quantity of NIM through this Nimiq faucet. 

It used to be possible to get 1 NIM per day but recently the amount has been reduced to 0,1 NIM. Still, this is a super simple way to earn some NIM every 24 hours.

Earning NIM by mining

The second way to get some coins it is by mining NIM through a web browser. Without going into too much detail, anyone can mine NIM through a web browser (Brave, Chrome, Firefox,Opera,…) but you must be aware that it will take processing power and electricity.

Still, if you are using your PC or laptop anyway, it may be worth to have the Nimiq web browser miner running in the background as the additional amount of electricity consumed will not be significant. This way of earning NIM can be considered a way to earn passive income.

Just be aware that mining consumes CPU power which may make your PC run slower, but the processing power usage can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the number of threads.

The process it is quite straightforward, once you know the basics, so it could be useful to first watch some Youtube videos and get to know the basics. Simply go to YouTube, type something like  ‘mining NIM through web browser’ and have a look to a couple of videos. 

As you can see, we mine NIM on daily basis and the rewards are automatically paid to our account.

Mining NIM through the web browser is not the fastest or the most efficient way no mine NIM. As an alternative, it is possible to install a desktop miner which mines NIM at much quicker rate.

As shown in the picture below, with an i7 PC we are able to reach up to 31 kh/s which is around 10 times faster than mining NIM through the web browser.

Again, it is a quite straightforward process but could be useful to have a look to some YouTube videos first to know the basics.

Earning NIM through donations

The third way is through donations. If you have a website you can add a NIM button so anyone with a Nimiq account can donate NIM to you.

This a more limited option available to those who have a website or a blog but if you want to see how it works, scroll down to the bottom of this page to see our donate NIM button.

Where to use your NIM

Well, after earning some NIM maybe you may want to spend them so you have some options like purchasing gift cards or products from the Nimiq shop.

Eventually, maybe by middle next year, there will be more ways to use our NIM. Have a look to the Nimiq roadmap every so often to know about what are the plans of the Nimiq team and what they are planning to deploy.

By the way, one very good deal is to purchase a Ledger Nano S hardware wallet though the Nimiq shop so you can store your NIM on an extra secure location.

That you don’t know what is hardware wallet?! Well, that is normal because you have just started you Crypto journey and little by little, day by day, you will increase your knowledge.

Mass adoption

The future of cryptocurrencies is dependent on mass adoption.

Most of the people understands little to nothing about the blockchain or crypto and considers that this 'stuff' it is far too complicated and they are right...

This is why I believe in Nimiq and the way this project is oriented towards making a complex ecosystem simple and easy to adopt.