Nano (XNO): how it works, supply and reviews
In short
- Type
- Payment protocol built on a block lattice: every account has its own blockchain
- Maximum supply
- About 133,248,297 nano, all in circulation since the faucet closed; some later sent to the burn address
- Risks and caveats
- With no fees, the network relies on proof-of-work and transaction prioritisation against spam; past spam and DDoS attacks slowed the network in 2021 and 2022.
- Checked
- 31 October 2026
Visitor ratings: do you like Nano?
Key facts
- Ticker
- XNO
- Official site
- nano.org
Key facts checked on 31 October 2026 against official sources.
What is Nano
Nano (ticker XNO, formerly RaiBlocks) is a digital payment protocol with no network fees and a fixed supply of about 133,248,297 nano. Each account keeps its own chain in a 'block lattice', and transactions are confirmed by Open Representative Voting instead of mining.
Network and consensus
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Type | Payment protocol built on a block lattice: every account has its own blockchain |
| Consensus | Open Representative Voting (ORV): accounts delegate voting weight to representatives without staking or locking funds |
| Anti-spam | Each block carries a small proof-of-work that takes a few seconds on a desktop CPU; it is not mining |
| Network fees | No network fees; wallets, exchanges and other services may still charge their own fees |
| Confirmation time | 338 ms observed average, as stated by the Nano Foundation (as of 31 October 2026) |
| Node rewards | Running a node earns no fees or rewards |
Supply and issuance
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Maximum supply | About 133,248,297 nano, all in circulation since the faucet closed; some later sent to the burn address |
| Issuance | No new coins are issued by the protocol |
| Initial distribution | Distributed through a CAPTCHA faucet from late 2015 to October 2017; about 39% of the genesis amount was distributed and the rest burnt |
What XNO is used for
- Nano is used as money for payments, from small tips to large transfers, with no network fee.
- Balances give voting weight that accounts delegate to a representative of their choice; delegating does not lock or hand over funds.
Who develops and governs Nano
- Foundation
- Nano Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation run by volunteers
- Founders
- The Foundation is led by two volunteer directors, Colin LeMahieu and George Coxon
- Governance
- No single company runs the network; independent representative nodes vote to confirm transactions
- Open source
- The reference node software is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence
History
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Colin LeMahieu starts designing a payment system to address Bitcoin's scalability, transfer times and fees. |
| December 2014 | The original RaiBlocks paper and first beta implementation are published. |
| October 2017 | The CAPTCHA faucet distribution, running since late 2015, ends; undistributed supply is burnt. |
| 31 January 2018 | RaiBlocks publishes its rebrand announcement and becomes Nano. |
| 18 March 2021 | Node release V21.3 is announced after a denial-of-service attack flooded the network with dust accounts. |
| 24 July 2023 | The Nano Foundation announces the XNO ticker and the Ӿ currency sign. |
Security and audits
- Every block needs a small proof-of-work, and representatives prioritise transactions in balance buckets, so spam from low-balance accounts mostly delays its own bucket.
- In March 2021 a denial-of-service attack created millions of dust accounts and slowed node synchronisation; node V21.3 addressed it.
- From mid-April 2022 DDoS attacks exploited node behaviour, causing crashes and stalled confirmations; patch V23.1 addressed the observed vectors.
Security incidents
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 18 March 2021 | Spam attack: Denial-of-service attack: within about 10 days the number of accounts rose from about 5.5 million to over 20 million dust accounts, stalling node synchronisation and slowing the rest of the network. Described in the 18 March 2021 post that announced node V21.3. | blog.nano.org |
| 19 May 2022 | Outage: From mid-April 2022 a sequence of DDoS attacks exploited node behaviour (unchecked-table filling, telemetry spoofing, a message-handling leak, vote-request stalling, a RocksDB corruption), causing high disk use, crashes and stalled transaction confirmation. Patch V23.1 was announced on 19 May 2022. | blog.nano.org |
Further incidents are reported by third parties (press, incident databases) but are not confirmed in the company’s own channels, so they are not listed here.
Risks and caveats
- With no fees, the network relies on proof-of-work and transaction prioritisation against spam; past spam and DDoS attacks slowed the network in 2021 and 2022.
- Nodes earn no fees or rewards, so representatives run them voluntarily.
- Wallets and services that handle nano are independently operated and may charge their own fees.
Official links
- Website: nano.org
- Docs: docs.nano.org
- Whitepaper: docs.nano.org/living-whitepaper
- Source code: github.com/nanocurrency/nano-node
- Blog: nano.org/blog
Questions and answers
What is Nano?
Nano (XNO, formerly RaiBlocks) is a digital payment protocol with no network fees, where each account has its own chain in a block lattice.
What is the maximum supply of Nano?
About 133,248,297 nano, all distributed through a faucet between late 2015 and October 2017; the protocol issues no new coins.
How does Nano work without fees or mining?
Representatives chosen by account holders vote on transactions (Open Representative Voting), and each block carries a small proof-of-work against spam.
Who created Nano?
Colin LeMahieu began designing it in 2014 as RaiBlocks; it was rebranded to Nano in January 2018. The Nano Foundation is led by Colin LeMahieu and George Coxon.
Has the Nano network been attacked?
Yes. A spam attack in March 2021 and DDoS attacks from mid-April 2022 slowed the network; node releases V21.3 and V23.1 addressed them.
Sources
- Nano - Home
- Nano Documentation - What is Nano?
- Nano Documentation - Distribution and Units
- Nano Documentation - Original RaiBlocks/Nano Whitepaper
- Nano Documentation - Release notes V21.3
- Nano node on GitHub
- Colin LeMahieu - Medium feed (Nano blog posts, 2017-2022)
- Nano - Blog
- nano.org, 31 January 2018 (Wayback)
More in this section
- Origin Protocol (OGN)
- SwissBorg (BORG)
- Decred (DCR)
- DMarket (DMT)
- Pax Dollar (USDP)
- Ravencoin (RVN)
- All Crypto projects →
How voting works
Votes are anonymous and carry no text. Each device has one vote per item; press the same button again to remove it. Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a person is voting. We keep a random device ID in a cookie and a salted hash of the IP address to limit abuse — no names, no accounts. Votes are visitors’ opinions, not investment advice.
Page updated: