NEM was started by a Bitcoin Talk forum user called UtopianFuture who was inspired by Nxt. The initial plan for NEM was to create a fork of NXT, but this was eventually dismissed in favor of a completely new codebase.[8] Starting on January 19, 2014, an open call for participation began on the Bitcointalk forum. The goal of the call was to create a community-oriented cryptocurrency from the ground up.