Core Question
What is nano and its unique structure of no fees?
The Network
Nano (XNO) is a ORV crypto. It is not PoW or PoS, which are the most common. What that means is it is Open Representative Voting. With your wallet, every 1 XNO you hold is 1 voting power. So, you then choose a node/representative on your behalf, which you can change at any time.
Whenever you spend/receive XNO, your wallet creates a new block on your personal chain and then broadcasts that to the network. Nodes then check that you have the funds and the signature is valid. Representatives then examine all blocks and signatures. If everything looks good, the representative approves it. Once a transaction reaches 67% of online weighted units (units that have bee delegated to a representative), the transaction is finalized. Once this happens, it is permanently written into the ledger, and is completely irreversible.
However, not any random representative can confirm transactions. A representative must have 0.1% of all the online weighted units to be able to actually finalize transactions.
Nodes and representatives do it all for free (no fees for you to pay), so you may wonder why even bother?
Why do it for free?
Nodes do it all for free because it helps everyone. There is no competition because there is no mining, so it is incredibly lightweight and can be run by practically anyone with basic hardware. And since the cost is low, it is not a big pain.
This matters a lot, since people running nodes usually have a lot of XNO or use its network (which is sub 1 second blocks). If only a few nodes actually ran the network, then it could lead to centralization, though that is limited due to the ORV and holders' decisions on representatives. It benefits everyone.
What do I mean by nodes vs representatives?
There are 3 "roles". Nodes, representatives, and principal representatives.
Nodes are the lowest level. They validate and relay blocks throughout the network. They don't have any XNO delegated to them.
Representatives are the middle. They can vote if they have delegated units, which can be any amount, even .0001 XNO. They also rebroadcast votes from principal representatives. Basically, your node is only connected to as few "peer" computer. When a representative votes, they can transfer the votes throughout the network. But, they verify and make sure that the vote they are broadcasting is from a principal representative, otherwise they drop the vote.
Principal representatives are the actual deciders on transactions. They must have over 0.1% of the delegated weighted units. They then decide on the transactions I just talked about.
Overall
I know this was a lot to digest. Do know I doubt it will become too mainstream. It is worth mentioning it has a max of 133,248,297 Nano, all of which has already been distributed. It is currently trading at around $0.32, with a marketcap just under $50 million.
While it is definitely interesting, I doubt that it will really replace major cryptos, but who knows. The feeless transfer could lead to spamming on the network by bots or something, which in turn could lead to outages, or longer transaction times. Only time will tell.
