In this article I will show you exactly why I love Navcoin and think you will too as soon as you learn about all the exciting features it offers. Make sure you read until the end and let me know in the comments, what you think about Navcoin.
What Is Navcoin?
As the name suggests, Navcoin is a cryptocurreny. Navcoin has been around for a very long time and I would consider it one of the original cryptocurrencies dating back to 2014. It is based on the Bitcoin blockchain (a fork of Bitcoin) but has implemented many additional features that makes it technologically superior and more exciting.
Navcoin is completely community driven which means, that there is not a single entity or company behind it. All the development and marketing is done by community members. When Navcoin started, there was no premine and so all the coins are distributed fairly amog the holders.
I have joined Navcoin as a community member back in May 2017. Since then it has always been one of my favorite cryptocurrency projects, along with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In the following paragraphs I will highlight some of the features Navcoin has to offer and which make it an exciting and technologically superior project compared to most other cryptocurrency projects.
What Are Unique Features Of Navcoin
Navcoin offers many features that are unique and interesting.
Proof Of Stake
With the recent Ethereum 2.0 upgrade and discussions about energy consumption of the Proof of Work algorithm that Bitcoin uses, the Proof of Stake algorithm has gained alot of popularity lately.
Navcoin has been one of the first projects that implemented and uses Proof of Stake for validating blocks. By simply holding your Navcoins in your wallet, you can stake and thus contribute to the security of the network and also earn a passive income of about a 5% APY. By staking, you can also participate in the voting for project in the community fund, but this feature will be covered separately later in this article.
Proof of Stake is very environmental friendly. You can even stake your Navcoins on a Raspberry Pi which only uses 5 Volt of power. Additionally, Navcoin has offset the carbon footprint of the network to become the world’s first carbon neutral cryptocurrency.
Privacy Using The BlsCT Procotol
Navcoin or rather xNav, Navcoins privacy coin, uses the self-developed blsCT privacy protocol which combines Boneh-Lynn-Shacham Signatures (BLS) and Confidental Transactions (CT) which offers big advantages in scalability, speed and utility. When using blsCT, multiple transactions with hidden senders and amounts are merged into one single block, and transactions can be aggregated an infinite number of times. This allows Navcoin to scale effectively and support a high quantity of transactions across the network with users’ transactions being completely shielded and untraceable. In comparison to other privacy coins like ZCash and Pivx there is no trusted setup involved.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Interoperability
Navcoin also uses a wrapped representation of its native coin, called wNav, which can be used to interact with dApps (like decentralized exchanges) in other ecosystems like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon and Avalanche. wNav can be used in the decentralized finance world:
- as collateral for securing loans
- to earn interest in lending pools
- for liquidity yield farming
- to trade on margin
Fully Decentralized Grants
Navcoin has implemented a DAO (decentralized autonomous organisation) that everyone in the community can use to get funds for their projects. With every staked block, 0.5 NAV gets added to this community fund where it accumulates over time. If anyone in the community has an idea on how to improve NAV (not only by coding, but also marketing activities etc.) you can present your idea and the amount of funds you need to the community by using the DAO. By staking, the community can then vote for or against your proposal. If your proposal is accepted by the community, the DAO automatically sends you the requested funds.
This community fund has funded many great things so far like the self-developed blsCT privacy algorithms, user-friendly wallets and lately a big marketing campaign with Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads, etc. The possibility are endless so if you have an idea but need funding, present it to the Navcoin community!
User Friendly Addresses
Many people new to crypto get scared when seeing wallet addresses. It’s easy to make a mistake when writing them and you always have a bad feeling when sending cryptocurrencies.
Navcoin has tackled this problem by implementing dotNAV. You will soon be able to register an alias for your wallet address that looks similar to an email address and use this to send and receive NAV. So people can use your alias (f.e. myname.nav) to send funds to you instead of the long and cryptic address.
Private Tokens and NFTs
At around the first quarter of 2022, support for private tokens and private NFTs will activate on the mainnet. With this update, NAV will become a high-utility privacy platform. People will be able to create their own private tokens or private token assets which opens up a new world for Navcoin. Examples could be a private stablecoin or a private tokenized asset like real estate or items in a game.
In addition to the private tokens, you will also be able to mint private non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) which are digital assets. You may have heard of Cryptopunks or Bored Apes NFTs before. The metadata of the NFTs will still be public for verifiability purposes but the sender and receiver will remain hidden and thus you will be able to keep your items private if you don’t want everyone to know which NFTs you own.
Tools For Developers
Developing applications that use a blockchain can be difficult. Navcoin has opted for making it as easy as possible for web developers to interact with the Navcoin blockchain. Alex V., one of the main developers and inventor of the blcCT privacy protocol has created a Javascript SDK called navcoin-js which is a fully-featured library with which you can interact with the Navcoin network. It includes both NAV and xNAV transactions.
Conclusion
Navcoin is a technological beast. If offers many unique and innovating features and combines features of other coins into one blockchain. With it’s self-developed privacy protocol, it makes it possible to keep your holdings (and in the future also your assets like NFTs) private. The developers are working tirelessly to improve the network and implement new features. Even though Navcoin is still flying under the radar and has not yet appreciated in price as much as it deserves based on technology, it is and will also always be one my favorite cryptocurrencies.
